Movista is spinning off its job recruitment platform as a new separate company,
The Bentonville-based firm announced that it will be launching Capango Inc. as a separate company, naming Stefan Midford as the president for Capango. Midford, who is listed as the CCO on Movista’s website, will oversee Capango’s nationwide rollout and growth.
Capango is a recruiting platform that matches individuals with jobs, using a proprietary scoring algorithms. Movista acquired the platform during its acquisition of Natural Insight, a Virginia-based company, in October 2019. At the time, Movista co-founder and CEO Stan Zylowski said the acquisition would allow increased innovation and customer experience in the workforce management sector.
“Stefan and his team at Natural Insight share our passion for value delivery and customer-focused innovation. Our technologies ensure the shopper finds what they want, when they want, where they want. Together, we will lead the way to a more mobile, agile and collaborative retail environment that delivers tangible, measurable returns for our customers,” Zylowski said in October 2019.
Capango launched in beta in 2019 and has been downloaded by more than 35,000 job seekers, according to the company.
Spinning Capango off as a separate entity is designed to grow the company and reach more markets, according to company executives. A company spokesperson said Capango began operating independently at the time of the announcement.
However, Midford said that there will still be overlap between the two companies, and Capango and Movista will continue to work in collaboration. “Movista has an amazing platform for managing the daily tasks required to be successful at retail. A significant part of the challenge we identified during the development of Capango, was identifying where staffing gaps exist and quickly filling those gaps with qualified workers. As we continue to grow both Movista and Capango will work together to smooth the gap between identifying staffing needs and connecting to amazing talent. We talk to many of the key players in retail so collaboration between the two organizations will benefit everyone,” Midford told Arkansas Money & Politics.
Looking to the future, Midford said Capango will be focused on connecting job seekers to increased opportunities. In an effort to accomplish this, the company will be expanding its marketing and increasing the number of downloads of the Capango app.
“As the economy struggles to reopen, we are focused on helping retailers and restaurants find great talent with a simple cost-effective platform. At the same time, we are dedicated to connecting job seekers to opportunities they will love, while helping them get back to work. We are expanding our marketing to ensure we get our message out to the broadest audience available so we can help as many businesses and workers as possible. Tens of thousands of workers have downloaded the Capango app and when we help them find employment, that will be really satisfying. So, for now, growth is all about the number of employers and seekers we can connect,” he said.
COVID-19 has increased demand for Capango due to the higher unemployment numbers. This has resulted in the challenge of sifting through a larger supply of job candidates for positions.
“The market is certainly in a state of turmoil and that looks to be continuing for longer than any of us would like. Last year we saw the challenge was finding available qualified talent, due to the exceptionally low unemployment rates,” Midford said. “This year, the challenge is to quickly sort through a much larger pool of possible job candidates and locate the person that will be the most successful in the open position. In addition, we focused on connecting the recruiters with simple mobile chat capabilities which is really enabling contactless recruiting. That’s better for the employer and the job seekers. So, from a market perspective we see a different but stronger demand for our platform than what we saw in the past.”
Founded in 2010, Movista was conceived as a class assignment while Zylowski was attending the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas for his MBA degree. A group of students, including Zylowski and Movista co-founder April Seggebruch, developed the idea for a kiosk-centered technology for workforce management.
With the introduction of the iPad, the company founders decided to pivot to a mobile platform in 2010 with the mobile product launching in May 2010. In 2018, Movista secured $12 million in Capital A Series funding and acquired Natural Insight the following year.
READ MORE: Central Arkansas Angel Network and Conductor Partner Up
