Boarding Pass
Altooro’s platform helps companies “evaluate skills, not resumes”
The company has raised $2.5 million to scout hidden gems and identify creative users, superstars, and outliers for the tech sector
“Hiring managers waste a non-trivial amount of time evaluating software engineers and spend their time repeating technical assessments manually. With Altooro, through job simulators and technical challenges, companies can automatically evaluate skill-sets and predict one's professional potential effectively,” the company explains.
Altooro has just raised $2.5 million to help companies scout hidden talents that they might miss when using traditional evaluation methods. The company was formed in Loop, a high-tech academy and startup incubator - where 15,000 participants and 45 mentors have benefited since its founding in 2015.
“With these capabilities, companies can identify the best average people and their strengths and weaknesses among these users,” the company noted.
Company Name: Altooro
Sector: AI
Product/Service description:
Technical evaluation platform
Founder Bios:
Wasim Abu Salem, Co-Founder
Mo (Mohammad) Mitwaly, Co-Founder and Development Lead
Year of Founding: 2021
Last Investment Round: $2.5 million
Last Investment Stage: Pre-Seed
Date of Last Investment: August 2022
Total investment to date: $2.5 million
Investors (leading and all): SIBF, RASHI, INVENTECH, IIA, Angel investors
Current number of employees: 10
Open positions: 2
Website:
How was the idea born?
We started to think about developing an internal assessment tool for us at Loop (a high-tech academy that Wasim founded in 2015) which will help scout talent at early stages and evaluate their true potential.
Using the more than five years of experience we had gained in the field and the work done with different tech companies, that was Altooro's starting point and where we "spun off" from to create this innovative solution.
Our work on Altooro started last year in August 2021.
What is the need for the product?
Hiring managers waste a non-trivial amount of time evaluating software engineers (for the hiring/training processes) and spend their time repeating technical assessments manually.
With Altooro, through job simulators and technical challenges, companies can automatically evaluate skill-sets and predict one's professional potential effectively.
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Altooro enables companies to scout hidden talents that they might miss when using traditional evaluation methods. With these capabilities, companies can identify the best average people and their strengths and weaknesses among these users.
While different solutions focus on the final submitted solutions, Altooro also concentrates on the actual solving process and analyzes it innovatively.
How is it changing the market?
Although the tech sector and the world economy are going through a challenging period, by 2030, there will be a shortage of 85 million developers worldwide, costing companies $8.5 trillion in revenue. Companies can't rely only on the possibility of hiring the top 10% of developers. Therefore, depending on the traditional methods of exams and standard assessments is outdated - because they will use arbitrary filters and miss potential talents. Companies started to understand that they need to evaluate skills, not resumes.
With Altooro, even if you solved only four out of five challenges, Altooro will still be able to identify your strengths and highlight them for the company.
We enable companies to scout hidden gems and identify creative users, superstars, outliers, and many more types of profiles.
Besides, having such an unbiased approach enables companies to maintain a diverse workforce.
How big is the market for the product and who are its main customers?
Altooro's engine is relevant for several use-cases: hiring, training, and career development. These are $35 billion markets.
Currently, Altooro is focusing on hiring managers for technical positions who are hiring engineers and software developers.
Does the product exist already? If not - at what stage is it and when is it expected to hit the market?
The product is live and is usable on a freemium plan by any individual or company interested in trying it out.
Who are the main competitors in this sector and how big are they?
The main competitors are traditional technical assessment tools that offer technical exams. Some known players work with large corporations. Yet, we believe that instead of focusing only on analyzing the final submitted code and testing it only, We trust that Altooro's approach in analyzing the whole process of you writing the answer and the process of you trying to solve the problem is what makes it unique.
In addition, assessment tools for the hiring process can also be considered competitors - these offer hiring managers different ways to evaluate engineers; examples are multi-choice, open-ended, and video-recorded questions.
Although we offer all of these, our differentiation is mainly the technical capabilities and deep analysis that enable us to provide valuable and actionable insights.
What is the added value that the founders bring to the company and the product?
Collectively we have more than 15 years of experience in the area of technical assessment and future-potential prediction. At Loop, the high-tech academy that Wasim founded in 2015, we have been honing our expertise in this field, bringing all of that knowledge to Altooro's offerings. Additionally, our long-term partnerships with organizations such as Google For Start-ups and MAMRAM Space, as well as having angel investors who are entrepreneurs, is very helpful.
What will the money coming in from the round be used for?
We will be using the funds to increase our team size, adding more experienced team members. We will also be hiring non-technical personnel to expand our client base and focus on the U.S market while also exploring new integrations with existing services in the tech market.
In the "Startup Boarding Pass" section, CTech will cover the (relatively) small investments made in companies during the early stages of their existence - and the entrepreneurs and startups who have not yet had the opportunity to reveal their stories to the world. Please use the linked form and fill it out according to the guidelines. This form is intended for startups raising between $500,000 and $3 million from venture capital funds, angels, or official grants from Israeli and foreign institutions. If relevant, someone at CTech will be in touch for follow-up questions.
