“The Mom Project is uniquely positioned to continue its rampant growth in the market from three perspectives: 1) it is one of the most visible workforce management platforms that is actively prioritizing and truly aligning DE&I within the very fabric of its functionality, 2) it offers one of the industry’s deepest communities of gender- and ethnically-diverse skillsets and talent, and, 3) its progressive technology platform enables a spectrum of innovative talent acquisition, talent engagement, and workforce management solutions that harness the incredible power of artificial intelligence and machine learning while forming a foundation of total talent management automation.”

So, in essence, it may not be so surprising that last week, The Mom Project secured $80M in Series C funding that will bolster the solution’s standing in the digital staffing marketplace, help it enhance its already-robust suite of functionality, and, most importantly, continue to connect talented mothers with open jobs, roles, and positions. This top-tier level of funding will augment the company’s teams and add additional headcount while boosting product development, a critical factor in an ever-evolving industry.

“We’ve demonstrated to the market that betting on moms is good business,” said Allison Robinson, CEO and Founder of The Mom Project. “We’ve seen 20x growth over the last three years and are eager to leverage this momentum and the trust and equity we’ve earned with moms and our customers and partners to continue building and expanding the reach of category-defining solutions that reshape how work evolves to meet the needs of modern families.”

FOWX analysis of this major market activity finds that the Leeds Illuminate-led funding (with participation from existing investors  7GC, Initialized Capital, OCA Ventures, Citi, High Alpha, Grotech Ventures, and Silicon Valley Bank) for The Mom Project is both an opportunity for both moms and the digital staffing industry at-large:

• This sizable level of funding, more than anything else, puts the focus on getting talented mothers, women, and diverse candidates back into the workforce. Just a couple of days ago, we wrote that 309,000 women left the workforce in September alone (on top of the tens of thousands of job losses across other backgrounds and races). The Future of Work Exchange fully expects The Mom Project to boost the power of its deep and diverse talent community, which was already a sizable component of its overall offering. With thousands of new and talented individuals added each day, the added investment will certainly help the platform expand its global reach, as well.
• The Mom Project will be able to enhance its market-leading functionality in 2022 and beyond. AI-led neural network engine, equitable self-learning technology, functionality that takes into account DE&I and customer culture in candidate-matching and workforce planning…the Series C level of funding will allow The Mom Project to build on these innovative features as well as its unique WerkLabs solution, which harnesses the power of predictive analytics, workplace data, and talent experience intelligence to help enterprises design and develop the most inclusive and productive workplace environments.
• This investment reflects the continued growth and impact of the digital staffing industry, which includes both digital staffing platforms and on-demand talent marketplaces. Ardent Partners, which has been covering the digital staffing space for nearly a decade, has found that there has been a 7x increase in the utilization of digital staffing solutions over the past six years, with more and more businesses opting to augment their greater talent acquisition strategies with on-demand talent channels that provide highly-qualified, pre-vetted, and project-aligned workers. A digital staffing outlet such as The Mom Project (which offers both workforce management functionality and a deep community of talent) securing $80 million in funding reinforces just how powerful digital staffing can be in the evolving world of talent and work. As businesses develop more flexibility into how they structure their workforce, digital staffing will become a relied-upon range of technology to enhance talent engagement.

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• The Mom Project raised $80M in Series C funding, the provider announced this week. This is not only a huge win for the digital staffing industry (which is garnering the attention it deserves as an innovative series of platforms and marketplaces that can revolutionize how talent is engaged), but also for the millions of U.S. working mothers that had to leave the workforce in 2020. Look for extended coverage of this exciting news next week on FOWX.
• HR has so much to manage these days, including many of the Future of Work attributes that are guiding workforce management today. I’m excited to join Utmost for an exclusive webcast on October 28, Five Things Every HR Executive Should Include in 2022 Planning, that will help HR and talent acquisition executives enhance their 2022 planning while keeping in mind the transformative shifts that the Future of Work is bringing to this evolving function.
• Beeline’s partnership with iValua is a signal that spend management and procurement-led functionality is still critical within the world of contingent workforce management. Although “cost savings” as both a metric and a focus item aren’t as high on the priority list as they were years ago due to the talent-led shifts in CWM, they are still critically important via supplier optimization as it relates to non-employee workforce spend management. This integration will enable a single channel for automated data control, talent spend intelligence, invoicing, and payment.
• “Trust” will become a key Future of Work element in 2022 from various workforce management angles. Trust was one of the early non-tech Future of Work attributes that came to attention when businesses were forced to enact on-the-fly remote work policies and business leaders were concerned about worker productivity. However, trust slices so much deeper than whether or not a manager trusts its staff to stay in-tune with its laptop screen for eight hours; trust is now a factor in how businesses view their candidate pipeline and talent pools. In the Future of Work Exchange’s upcoming Direct Sourcing 2.0 research study, we write that part of an advanced talent acquisition strategy, especially within the confines of a direct sourcing program, must include next-level skills validation, expertise assessments, and talent proctoring.
• Interesting to see the unique partnership between TAPFIN and Qwil earlier this week, which represents a supply chain finance-like experience for suppliers within the TAPFIN MSP’s network to gain early access to funds. It’s always exciting when an innovative arena in another industry realm (such as “ePayables,” which Ardent Partners uses as a catch-all term to describe invoice and payment automation) converges with the world of workforce management technology and solutions. This partnership should be the first of several to follow, as more and more suppliers lean into various financing options to continue to grow and thrive their businesses.
• Do falling U.S. COVID caseloads in conjunction with soon-to-be-vaccinated youngsters mean that return-to-office plans could shift closer? There’s been much discussion (and something covered frequently in The New York Times) regarding the “two-month cycle” of COVID surges; with the U.S. on the tail-end of the Delta variant’s mid-summer push (now that we are in autumn) could that translate into business leaders feeling safer to inch up return-to-office plans? With 5-to-11-year-olds in line to inoculated as early as the first week of November, will that also contribute to a change in thinking? If working parents that are currently battling with daycare and remote learning struggles in COVID hotspots have additional peace of mind if their children are vaccinated, it could mean a shift in how some professionals structure their short-term career paths now that more safety is baked into the world around them.

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The Background:

In the world of “digital staffing,” which is a wide-encompassing industry that includes talent marketplaces, talent clouds, talent communities, on-demand staffing outlets, freelancer management systems (even though “FMS” as an acronym is seemingly defunct), as well as direct sourcing technology, it’s not often that businesses have access to an end-to-end workforce management platform that also prioritizes talent engagement with a deep community of gender- and ethnically-diverse professionals.

Future of Work Exchange research finds that 62% of businesses expect more focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives over the next year, proving that the technology spectrum within workforce management needs to evolve to meet this expected shift moving forward.

Enter The Mom Project.

Why They Were Selected:

The world for working parents has dynamically shifted…again. The Mom Project’s Greg Robinson (COO and co-founder), who appeared on the Contingent Workforce Weekly podcast earlier this year, said that he and his team fear that we will see another mass exodus of women from the workforce due to the pandemic and its wide-sweeping ramifications. The Mom Project is looking to change that through its unique ability to connect enterprises with qualified and diverse candidates in a nimble, agile, and on-demand manner. That alone warrants selection as a solution that is shaping the Future of Work, but there’s more to the story.

On top of its 500,000+ (and growing) network of diverse candidates, The Mom Project also offers progressive workforce management technology such as true total talent management functionality, an AI neural network learning engine (that incorporates customer culture and DE&I attributes) that helps users identify key DE&I trends and patterns, and automation that assists enterprises in building ready-to-engage, pre-vetted talent from both non-employee/contingent and direct hire/FTE perspectives.

The Mom Project is one of the most progressive and innovative workforce/talent solutions in today’s evolving technology landscape.

In Their Own Words:

More than one million American women will become parents this year, joining the ranks of the working parenthood — a vital segment of the workforce. Simultaneously, businesses are challenged to retain talented employees as they navigate through this period of life, and struggle to find the experienced talent they need to grow.

The Mom Project is the expert partner helping companies create stronger, more diverse workforces that are well-prepared for the Future of Work. These are the big picture problems that C-suites, boards, investors and hiring managers across the country are focused on. We’re proud to be the consultative, action-oriented partner working hand-in-hand with our customers to drive lasting change.

• Our platform drives community engagement and trust, driving a premium pipeline of over 500,000 members, growing by 20,000 members a month.
• Our thought leadership and hands-on collaboration with hiring managers and recruiters ensures talent doesn’t get stuck mid-way, and that mom is primed to thrive in her new role.
• Giving back to our 501.3(c) nonprofit, RISE, ensures that we’re continuously preparing the candidates of the future.
• Co-branding drives talent perception and pipeline, and each hire becomes a story to further elevate partners as employers of choice for working families.

Women staying engaged in the workforce on their terms is good for families. It’s good for business. It’s good for everyone. .

The Outlook:

Over the next two years, 62% of businesses expect to address DE&I objectives and initiatives with workforce management technology and similar automation, according to Future of Work Exchange research. This statistic reflects just how critical diversity, equity, and inclusion truly is within the digital staffing solutions arena and its crucial place as part of greater talent management strategies.

The Mom Project is uniquely positioned to continue its rampant growth in the market from three perspectives: 1) it is one of the most visible workforce management platforms that is actively prioritizing and truly aligning DE&I within the very fabric of its functionality, 2) it offers one of the industry’s deepest communities of gender- and ethnically-diverse skillsets and talent, and, 3) its progressive technology platform enables a spectrum of innovative talent acquisition, talent engagement, and workforce management solutions that harness the incredible power of artificial intelligence and machine learning while forming a foundation of total talent management automation.

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