Neufast, a Singapore-based multilingual recruitment and language training platform, announced Tuesday it has raised $1.1 million in a Pre-Series A funding round led by Wavemaker Ventures, the early-stage fund of Wavemaker Partners, with participation from existing backer Wings Capital Ventures.

The new round will fuel product development, market expansion, and enhancement of Neufast’s proprietary AI capabilities–to meet growing demand for inclusive, efficient recruitment and language proficiency solutions across regulated industries, Neufast said in a statement.

Neufast’s early investors include SOSV Orbit Startups, Artesian Venture Partners, Her Capital Ventures, AsiaPay Capital, and Connect Beteiligung GmbH in Vienna, Austria.

With the new funding, Neufast plans to expand its engineering team, further refine its proprietary large language models (LLMs), and build industry-specific integrations–with a particular focus on the insurance and healthcare sectors.

New partnerships with universities and government agencies are also in development to extend the reach of AI-driven recruitment and training at scale.

“Our platform is designed to help organizations hire and upskill talent fairly and efficiently — regardless of language barriers,

“This new funding enables us to scale our reach and deepen our AI-driven insights, empowering employers to build stronger, more inclusive teams across Asia Pacific,” said Agnes Wun, CEng, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Neufast.

Neufast is a software as a service (SaaS) company headquartered in Singapore, with operations in Hong Kong and Malaysia, serving clients across ASEAN.

Its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered multilingual video interview and language training platform supports recruitment in Cantonese, Malay, Bahasa Indonesia, Thai, Vietnamese, Tagalog, English, and Mandarin.

Its AI-powered platform conducts automated, bias-free job interviews and language assessments in 20 Asian and European languages, helping companies dramatically cut recruitment times by up to 88 percent.

The platform also supports compliance with data privacy and anti-discrimination laws, including through its proprietary PII redaction technology.

Since launching in May 2020, the firm has assessed over 40,000 candidates and helped leading organizations find top talent.

Its clients include Kasikorn Business Technology Group (Thailand), AIA Malaysia, Etiqa Life Insurance Berhad under the Maybank Group in Malaysia, Takaful (Malaysia), Bank Danamon (Indonesia), Carlsberg Asia, the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks (HKSTP) and Hong Kong’s Urban Renewal Authority.

Beyond recruitment, Neufast’s platform is also used for language training. The Universities use the platform to train students in English oral communication for job interviews – equipping them with critical employability skills.

As organizations across Asia Pacific (APAC) and the European Union (EU) face increasing pressure around data governance, cybersecurity, and fair hiring practices, the need for secure, AI-driven recruitment and language solutions has surged.

Neufast’s ISO 27001:2022 certification and integration with SAP’s human resource (HR) ecosystem position it uniquely to support regulated industries at scale.

“Traditional recruitment processes are slow, costly, and inefficient, causing companies to miss out on top talent,

“Neufast is changing that with an AI-driven platform that cuts time-to-hire by up to 88% and boosts efficiency by 50 percent,” said Paul Santos, Managing Partner of Wavemaker Partners.

“What sets Neufast apart is its ability to localize assessments, incorporating linguistic and cultural nuances to ensure fairer, more accurate evaluations while advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion goals,

“Beyond automating pre-employment hiring, Neufast is building a next-gen talent management platform for a global, distributed workforce. We’re excited to back their mission to build more connected, skilled teams across Southeast Asia and beyond,” he added.

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