Talent Search

Recruitment company Glints moves beyond job matching.

- Ardian Wibisono

Southeast Asia is a hotspot for the digital industry but one of the main factors, that is holding back its full potential is the lack of talent required for the industry. A lot of tech companies are trying to resolve this issue, one of them being Singapore-based startup Glints, which has taken a different approach to the problem called a full-stack approach. The approach includes prepping the potential talent to meet the requirements of the employer like Go-Jek and insurance company FWD, and banks such as UOB. Glints has partnered with Kris Wiluan’s Citramas Group to set up Glints Academy – a coding boot camp that up-skills young Indonesians to become web developers – in Nongsa, Batam. And in July the startup obtained $6.8 million in a Series B round led by Monk’s Hill Ventures. The round made a total of $9.7 million in funding into the startup over five rounds.

Glints has come a long way to get to where it is now. Oswald Yeo, Looi Qin En and Seah Ying Cong initially started the company back in 2013 paying $20 for a website and making it a side-job business. The three were aged 22, 21, and 21 respectively. Other cofounders Wong Yong Jie and Steve Anderson Sutanto joined in 2014 and 2015 to build the technology team and Indonesian business. When Forbes Indonesia covered the startup in 2016, Glints had already attracted major companies like Puma, Adidas, and Chevron as clients and generated $55,000 in revenue in the previous year. However, Oswald says the company was still trying to find the right business model to grow the company and differentiate it from competitors.