Vanishnavi More, the founder of Archslate, a Silicon Valley-based startup that connects employers and candidates in the architecture industry, has moved to Tampa.
More and her husband, who is an application engineer for fintech startup Fast, both simultaneously made the big decision to move.
For her husband, who joined Fast when it was launching, he wanted to move to the city as Fast was opening its East Coast hub in Tampa. But More already had her eyes on Tampa.
“Silicon Valley is all built out. There’s no more space left,” More said. She was also considering Colorado and Austin, as they are destinations with architecture and engineering industry; however, the new hi-rise towers and projects in downtown Tampa caught More’s attention during a site visit.
More is a Harvard grad who majored in architecture and design. She relentlessly sought work in the industry but despite her high-level education and experiences, she was not able to – which led her to think how other qualified candidates are facing the same brick wall.
In 2020, More created her company Archslate, which is an algorithm-based platform that connects architects seeking employment to employers and vice-versa.
“It took me almost six months and 200 applications to get a job,” More said. “I knew I wanted to do something about it. There’s this massive disconnect where you have firms aggressively posting on job boards and then on the other side, people are applying to every single job they come across.”
Humble beginnings
She brought up the idea to a professor at Harvard about creating a platform specifically designed for aspiring architects and architecture firms.
“We worked on this idea and he said it had great potential, it’s a great market opportunity. We worked on it for three or four months as an independent study and then I pitched for the venture innovation program at the Harvard Innovation Labs,” More said, explaining how Harvard reviews thousands of applications from students vying to be accepted into the labs and handpicks a select few.
During that time in 2019, More said she was the only female founder accepted into the program.
She was able to have physical space in the lab and access to resources, which included connecting with execs from tech giants like Google and Airbnb.
“When we had this idea, we were just at the beginning of the pandemic and during the pandemic, we built the product, and it’s such critical timing now because people are hiring and looking for jobs,” More said, adding how more employers were leaning toward new technology platforms to scout for talent as they weren’t able to physically meet with candidates.
She has a team of 15 employees who all work remotely in India, where More is from.
The marketing materials for Archslate. Photo courtesy of More.
Today, there are 700 users on the platform. The company has formed working relationships with architect organizations, Harvard and MIT.
“We’ve seen people hire within 12 hours. It’s the science behind it, how we use artificial intelligence in a way that connects the passions of the job seeker with the requirement of the company,” More said.
The user can also track their application process.
By end of this year, the company plans to have 5,000 users on the platform, and 25,000 by the following year.
The company has two different revenue streams – one is from the employer who pays a subscription fee and the other is a subscription fee for the candidates (along with software tutorials).
The company charges a daily fee for employers whereas, on a typical online job recruitment site, it charges a price per job posting.
“As we scale, we want to add engineering and construction catagories for contractors – they are all interconnected,” she said.
Archslate also plans to develop a feature that would connect different users who can message one another and collaborate.
The company is in the pre-seed funding stage and has won several grants.
More is one of the semifinalists for the Tech Women Rising cohort at Tampa Bay Wave.
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