CHARLOTTE – Charlotte-based startup HireMe Healthcare has raised $150,000 from five investors, and has plans to raise up to $350,000 more in their first fundraising effort in order to build out the company’s team to scale growth in the Charlotte market as demand for talented healthcare professionals continues to surge.

So explains rey Ennis, cofounder of HireMe Healthcare, in an interview with WRAL TechWire.

The company completed an SEC filing noting that the raise included an an option, warrant, or other right to acquire another security, as well as a simple agreement for future equity, and was signed earlier this week by COO Ryan Lee.

Founded in 2017, the firm is seeking to do for healthcare professionals and employers what Zillow’s built for homebuyers and sellers, said Ennis.  He founded the company because he worked with nurses and other healthcare professionals that weren’t receiving call backs for jobs, and yet the healthcare profession, particularly in Charlotte, had so many vacant job openings.

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Prior to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, Ennis reported that the company had about 20 clients who were paying a monthly subscription fee to access an open-source applicant tracking system that enabled companies to recruit licensed healthcare professionals from across the state of North Carolina.  Many of the company’s clients faced headwinds during the early months of the pandemic, and as a result, Ennis and his team decided they would rebuild the company’s mobile platform to streamline the user experience for nurses and other healthcare professionals while also adding back-end capabilities for the company.

Now, the company is preparing to release it’s latest version of their technology, and plans to use the funds raised in this first round to hire a business relationship manager, as well as invest in additional operational needs, such as marketing.  The company has built a database of licensed professionals, including a variety of data points, that allows the company to do hyper-targeted recruitment-based marketing, said Ennis, including based on location.

“We really focused on the ease of use for healthcare professionals, how user friendly it is for nurses and other healthcare professionals, and on the back end, we focused on functionality for hiring managers,” said Ennis.  “We’re focusing on North Carolina, due to the fact that we have the resources here, and we want to do it well here first.”

Charlotte will continue to be an important market for healthcare, said Ennis, and the recent announcement of a medical school that will be based in the city will be important for the region, as well as for the company as it expands in the market where it was founded.  “It’s going to bring professionals here, from the beginning, where they will learn, and study here,” said Ennis.