Oliver Hibbs-Brockway/Nodal
News Savings And Investment
Blockchain-powered freelancer firm Nodal scoops £250m contract from UK recruiter Minstrell
An incredible quarter-billion pound deal, which could be a sign of things to come.
UPDATE 04-09-2019 - In September 2019 AltFi published an article (Staff stage 'coup' at blockchain startup Nodal Labs) which raises significant questions about the claims made by Nodal's management in this earlier article.
Getting paid as a freelancer is never easy as Minstrell Recruitment, a specialist recruiter in the construction industry, knows well.
That’s why this morning they signed a whopping £250m five-year contract with blockchain startup Nodal Labs to automate everything from talent identification to timesheets, invoicing, and payment.
“The Nodal platform will make some of our sector’s most time-consuming and difficult processes easy,” said Steve Moran, Director at Minstrell Recruitment.
Nodal, which is due to launch publicly in April, is building a fully-automated talent platform with a custom blockchain at its core so that all records and transactions can be verified and tracked.
“As a leader in its industry, working with Minstrell Recruitment is a hugely exciting opportunity,” said Oliver Hibbs-Brockway, Founder and CEO of Nodal Labs.
“Nodal has been built to revolutionise the recruitment process, using blockchain technology to record, verify and automate the traditionally slow and cumbersome processes.”
For a relatively unknown startup to announce such a large £50m/year contract is undoubtedly impressive... however, delivering on such a contract is a different ballgame.
Despite reportedly awarding a £500,000 marketing contract, Nodal currently only appears to have 12 employees on LinkedIn.
On the other hand, AltFi understands that Luxembourg-based banking group ABH Holdings recently led Nodal’s Series A funding round and Eitan Jankelewitz, a partner at Sheridan’s law firm once named the ‘blockchain barrister’, sits on the company’s advisory board.
Nodal is said to believe the platform they’re building could extend to many other markets besides recruitment, including payments more generally.
Certainly a lot of promise, but time will tell whether Hibbs-Brockway and his team can deliver.
UPDATE 2019-03-14: In response to AltFi's questions about the value of the Minstrell contract and the efficiency savings that are possible, Hibbs-Brockway said: “The partnership sees Nodal provide Minstrell with the infrastructure that brings together currently siloed systems related to its recruitment and HR. The deal will cut costs through avoiding duplication of entries, delays in processing, and inefficient processes related to the thousands of employees and freelancers on its books.”
