HubSpot Co-Founder Shah Backs Peerlist in New Way of Professional Communication • TechCrunch

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With More than 875 million users Across more than 200 countries, LinkedIn is a household name in the world of professional networking. But as the platform has grown, it has shifted some of the focus to becoming another source from Consume And Content production. Now a startup wants to disrupt that.

peer list It aims to bridge this gap by providing a space for professionals to find and connect with each other based on their experience and qualifications.

It creates a one-stop destination for professionals to showcase their work experience, education, and network with like-minded individuals in their field. On the platform, users can integrate work referral sites such as GitHub, Dribbble, Substack, and Gumroad. They can also get their work experience and education to add an extra layer of authenticity.

The platform uses the individual’s business email to verify their work experience. To verify educational credentials, users upload their student badge or ID or use the institution’s assigned email ID to verify their profiles. The startup has plans to verify users’ past work and education experiences by expanding the verification feature over time.

“Since many people have their work distributed across different platforms, and developers, designers and tech professionals often write articles on Substrack and share codes on GitHub, we wanted to allow them to create a profile where they can showcase all their work,” said Akash Bhadange, Founder Co-CEO of Peerlist, in an interview.

Profiles with verified details are available for public viewing in CV and Work Portfolio formats. Users need to register if they want to message a user or get their contact information.

Bhadange, a former producer and UX designer, founded Peerlist in August 2021 with his wife, Yogini Bende. Bende, who has experience as a front-end developer, oversees engineering-related tasks at the startup.

Bhadange confirmed that Peerlist has expanded its user base to more than 20,000 people – 60% of whom are verified – without any marketing spend. The startup plans to spend some of its new funding on marketing. It also aims to expand its engineering team from a team of five to product development – along with a dedicated marketing and sales team.

Bhadang said Peerlist hopes to amassed more than 1 million users by the end of the year.

Peerlist’s current user base consists of individuals with senior to mid-level experience. The startup said it is working to make the platform attractive to high-level professionals.

To satisfy more users, Peerlist plans to add a feature that allows individuals to set up custom domains for their profiles.

At the moment, Peerlist does not have a revenue generation model. Despite this, the platform wants to monetize its verified user base by charging companies that are looking to hire professionals on the basis of their work experience and education.

With its broad reach, Peerlist has attracted some investment from many industry insiders. The Delaware-registered startup, which has an office in Pune, said it has raised $1.1 million in a seed funding round led by HubSpot co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah.

Other co-investors include Plotch.ai founder and CEO Manoj Gupta, co-founder of Moonfrog, CTO Kumar Puspesh, co-founder and CEO of Dukaan Suumit Shah, and entrepreneur and angel investor Mohan Rao.

The startup company plans to spread the funds to add dozens of additional features. One of them will allow companies to showcase their brand and technology stack on the platform. According to Padang, professionals who use these profiles will be able to find more details about the company’s founders and other team members, and can see their contributions, such as writing on blogs or software contributions featured on GitHub. He said this will give professionals a deeper understanding of the company’s culture and technical capabilities and help them make more informed decisions about job opportunities.

Additionally, Peerlist has plans to help angel investors get their startup investment history verified on the platform, making it easier for professionals to connect with and secure funding from these investors. Bhadang said that this particular development was currently in the contemplation stage but had the potential to add tremendous value.

“The world is ready for some innovation when it comes to online professional networking,” Shah told HubSpot in a statement. “Peerlist meets this challenge with a product that is designed for modern times and feels like a breath of fresh air. I invested because this is the need of the hour for this industry, and the timing is perfect for such a disruption.”

Prior to all-equity seed funding, Peerlist has raised $25,000 in angel funding from ModernLoop Chief Engineering Officer Vishwesh Jirgale and Chief Product Engineering Officer at Postman Akshay Deo in October 2021.

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