Pune-based sales hiring startup Scooter has raised Rs 1.5 crore in a pre-seed funding round led by Aviral Bhatnagar’s AJVC. The company will use the fresh capital to strengthen its product and simplify the sales hiring process for both candidates and hiring managers.
Founded in 2024 by Kartik Mandrekar and Saumya Seth, Scooter helps startups recruit sales professionals by evaluating candidates through real-world sales scenarios rather than depending primarily on conventional CV-based screening.
Mandrekar has previously led sales teams at Gartner, Shoptimize, and Graas. Meanwhile, Seth is a behavioural scientist who holds a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
The platform first sources verified sales professionals and then evaluates them through real sales scenarios. Following the assessment, Scooter gives hiring managers a shortlist of three to five candidates. In addition, managers can watch short video clips from the assessments before they review a candidate’s CV. As a result, one of Scooter’s customers completed a sales hire within six days.
Currently, Scooter works with more than 50 companies and has added 14 customers in recent months. Furthermore, the startup has built a talent pool comprising more than 10,000 sales candidates.
The latest investment marks AJVC’s first investment in a Pune-based startup. Led by Aviral Bhatnagar, AJVC operates as a pre-seed fund focused on backing early-stage companies.
With its platform, Scooter aims to help startups and sales teams reduce the time they spend sourcing, assessing, and hiring sales professionals. Therefore, the company is positioning its assessment-led approach as an alternative to traditional sales recruitment processes.
