SEEK funds Hireup in NDIS tech venture

The recruitment powerhouse is making its first move into the ­disability services sector, helping people with disabilities find, hire and manage support workers.

Hireup co-founders Laura O’Reilly, Murray Bunton and Jordan O’Reilly, with Steve Ralph. Picture: Ryan Osland

The venture capital arm of online recruitment powerhouse SEEK is making its first move into the ­disability services sector, taking a strategic stake in one of the ­nation’s leading online platforms for people with disabilities to help them find, hire and manage support workers.

SEEK Investments is leading a $40m capital raising to provide growth funding for the Sydney-based Hireup, positioned at the heart of the $25bn-a-year National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), now with nearly 500,000 participants across Australia.

Hireup, which is NDIS-registered, offers a platform allowing people with disabilities to connect with support workers online.

It also lowers the overheads ­required to cover the cost of administrative necessities like managing payrolls, invoicing, tax, superannuation, insurance and training.

Brother-and-sister team Jordan and Laura O’Reilly founded Hireup in 2015 after watching the existing system fail their younger brother Shane, who lived with cerebral palsy and died in 2011 at 21.

Years earlier, their father had died when they were teenagers.

“Hireup is a terrific business and we are pleased that SEEK ­Investments is going to be part of its exciting journey,” said SEEK co-founder Andrew Bassat, who is now running the venture capital arm known as SEEK Investments.

In February he handed the day-to-day running of SEEK’s core business to former Commonwealth Bank chief executive Ian Narev as part of a restructuring in which the investment arm separated from its legacy online employment business.

The investment division will have about $1.2bn under management and Mr Bassat has declared he wants to double the size of the business as it backs a new generation of Australian entrepreneurs.

“Hireup is a company that originated from true lived experience and passion for the Australian disability sector. Our investment will enable it to reach more people, ­refine its technology and extend its services to people who need it most. Hireup’s future is bright. I am delighted we will be a part of it,” Mr Bassat said.

With the $40m injection of capital, Hireup plans to invest in services, people and technology, and further expand support for people living with disabilities.

“This capital will allow us to grow into new communities across Australia, hire more support workers, expand our central services team and invest in our product and technology to deliver even better outcomes for our clients,’’ Mr O’Reilly said.

A key will be hiring engineers to build the company’s technology capabilities.

“We have a huge backlog of great features that we know we need to build for people,” he said. “We employ all of our support workers so we also want to invest in them by providing more training and more career development opportunities.”

The firm pays workers as employees rather than contractors, a rarity for companies in the on-­demand space.

Its rivals include the Ellerston Capital-backed online platform Mable Australia, which also services the aged care sector.

Hireup has grown strongly since 2015 and today provides support to more than 10,000 people with disability a year.

Hireup’s rates are below the NDIS price guide, which it claims has saved clients more than $70m since 2015, the equivalent of 1.3 million extra hours of support.

Intrinsic Partners and Arnold Bloch Leibler advised Hireup on the latest capital raising, the biggest in its history. Last year Hireup launched a $10,000 board observership program inviting people with a disability to sit in on the board for six months.

Hireup has previously received a grant as part of NAB’s $1m Impact Investment Readiness Fund, which provides grants to help prepare social enterprises to become investor-ready.

It has also received funding from Google.

Hireup is a leading light in the emerging impact investment sector in Australia, having grown thanks to early support from other backers including the Myer family’s The Myer Foundation, the Liberman family’s Jagen, Impact Generation Partners, the Scalzo family and the Salteri family’s CAGES Foundation.

“We saw enormous potential in Hireup back when The Myer Foundation made its first seed investment in 2015. As a philanthropic fund, we want every dollar to make a difference, to have a positive impact on the community,” said Leonard Vary, CEO of The Myer Foundation.

“And it’s been wonderful to see Hireup improving the lives of people with disability across Australia ever since.

“That significant social return has been backed by strong financial performance, so we are delighted that SEEK Investments is coming on-board.”

Hireup is also backed by the William Buckland Foundation and Melbourne’s Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation, as well as a number of wealthy individuals.

Quadriplegic Steve Ralph recently finished his half-year term as a board observer.

Mr O’Reilly said he first met Mr Bassat several months ago over lunch.

“I was blown away by the kindness that he showed in an hour- long meeting. I got a real sense of values alignment,” he said.

“He and the SEEK people also showed such a sophisticated understanding of the NDIS and its importance for all of us as Australians.”

“It can’t be underestimated how important this is as a step forward for the Australian disability sector. For so long the sector operated as a silo. It is about individualised planning but also giving people with a disability the opportunity to participate in mainstream life.”

I hope in the future more organisations like SEEK get involved in the sector and that we see more firms hiring people with disabilities.”

Mr O’Reilly said there were no plans for an IPO of the business.

“To have a long term investor like SEEK that is values aligned with patient capital, that is really important to us as founders,’’ he said.