An employer-of-record firm won Wednesday’s “Shark Tank” competition at Staffing Industry Analysts’ Collaboration in the Gig Economy Conference in Dallas.

Executives from five workforce solutions ecosystem firms — finalists from 30 applicants — pitched their stories before four judges in the competition styled after the television show “Shark Tank.” They were judged on quality of presentation, level of innovation and market potential

The judges selected Ascen as their winner.

Ascen CEO Francis Larson described his company as “the modern EOR for talent platforms.”

Ascen provides employer-of-record and agent-of-record services for companies engaging contingent talent. It works with staffing firms, aiming to enable them to focus on finding and placing talent rather than time sheets and regulatory compliance. It also works with online staffing platforms and other companies in the workforce ecosystem.

“I think Ascen is operating in such a massive space,” said judge Robert Biederman, managing partner of Asymmetric Capital Partners. Biederman previously was co-founder and co-CEO of Catalant Technologies. He is also an executive fellow at Harvard Business School.

Fellow judge Shashank Saxena also commented on market potential for Ascen.

“I think it works,” Saxena said. “It’s something [Larson] can get going and get traction on.”

For staffing firms with less than $5 million in payroll, it doesn’t make sense to have their team handling this back office-type work, he said.

Saxena is general manager of vendor management system provider Vndly, a Workday company. Saxena was co-founder and CEO of Vndly prior to its acquisition by Workday in 2021 for $510 million.

Other judges were Nina Eigerman, senior VP, alliances and business development at Bullhorn Software, and Paul Estes, founder of XpertLinkAI. Prior to Bullhorn, Eigerman ran the business services practice at G2 Capital Advisors. Estes has held leadership roles at companies such as Microsoft, Amazon and Dell.

In Wednesday’s Shark Tank competition, executives had five minutes to pitch their companies. That was followed by five minutes of questions and answers with the judges.

Audience members also voted for their favorite company. The winner was ThisWay Global, a firm that aims to provide unbiased talent matching and sourcing through a proprietary network of more than 8,500 unique, diverse community partners.

Pitching ThisWay Global was Angela Hood, founder and CEO.

The other three finalist firms competing on Wednesday were:

• ETeki, an international tech interviewing-as-a-service marketplace. Handling the pitch were CEO Hans Bukow and VP Amanda Cole.
• Gigged.AI, an AI-driven startup that enables companies to define and source on-demand talent. CEO Rich Wilson pitched the company.
• Shiftfillers, a light industrial vendor-on-premise staffing firm built to support the MSPs. Chief Operations Officer Karen Febus and President and CTO Roderick Smyth handled the pitch.

Moderating the Shark Tank competition was Brian Wallins, research director, Staffing Industry Analysts.

The Collaboration in the Gig Economy Conference concludes today.