Seed investor SFC Capital has led a £500,000 pre-seed funding round for hospitality talent platform FlairMakers to expand its venue network.
The transaction combines capital allocations from SFC Capital’s Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) and Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) funds with co-investment from angel backers. The platform operates a talent-as-a-service model designed to standardise freelance employment infrastructure across the hospitality sector.
FlairMakers manages contractor identity verification, regulatory compliance, contractual structuring, automated cross-border payments and quality assurance.
Operating in the UK and Romania, the company will deploy the capital into product development to prepare the platform for future institutional venture rounds.
Chief executive Raluca Epureanu previously managed the regional events division for Marriott International in Asia Pacific, overseeing 750 hotels. Chief technical officer Alexis Sikorsky previously founded and exited a banking software firm in a nine-figure transaction.
Data from the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed indicates that 2.046 million UK freelancers work across top occupational skill groups. Survey data from the company shows that 83% of hospitality workers prioritise flexible shift arrangements, whereas only a third of frontline employers provide flexible rota systems.
Adam Beveridge, fund principal at SFC Capital, said: “The best pre-seed investments back shifts that are already underway and hospitality’s move to portfolio careers is exactly that. FlairMakers is the first team we’ve seen treating it as an infrastructure problem, not a staffing one.”
Epureanu added: “Hospitality has always assumed there are two ways to work: employment or agencies. There is a third, and the industry’s best professionals are already living it, the same sommelier working shifts across three venues, teaching wine-tasting classes and consulting on wine lists. The industry keeps asking how to get people back. The answer is to stop asking them to fit a model they’ve already rejected.”
