A stealthy Seattle area startup by the name of Jobaline has reeled in $1.5 million in fresh funding, money that the company plans to use to continue development on a new service that matches hourly workers with employers.

Former Facebook general counsel Rudy Gadre is leading the round, with Seattle’s Madrona Venture Group also participating alongside angel investors from New York and Seattle. As a result of the funding, Madrona’s Brian McAndrews, the former CEO of aQuantive, has joined Gadre on the board.

Jobaline plans to launch service next year. At this point, CEO Luis Salazar isn’t saying too much about how they will attack the market, noting only that they will go “beyond the 18th century classified ads model” that’s been used to connect employers and workers. It plans to do this by implementing a cloud platform approach, with Salazar noting that it will be “smart, social, mobile, simple, and coming soon.”

Luis Salazar

“Internet and mobile technologies have connected people in extraordinary ways,” says Salazar via email. “Those who would otherwise be strangers can communicate, learn, entertain, socialize, game, post, view, and opine to the world through a handheld device and an Internet connection. But the existing hourly worker/employer matching technology mimics a model that dates back to the 1700s when the first classified ads were published.”

A former Microsoft manager and chief marketing officer at Global Market Insite, Salazar said that the new cash will be used to expand the engineering and design team. It will also be used to support the launch. In addition to Salazar, the 5-person team is comprised of early Aldus employee Brian Hilgendorf (CFO); former OptionEase and Rainmaker technology executive Bill Davidheiser (CTO) and former Microsoft manager Miki Mullor (Vice President of Strategic Alliances). Advisors include Mel Kleiman of Humetrics and Joel Rosenberger of WPP.

The funding is the latest in the startup region by Madrona, which also participated in today’s $26 million round for Smartsheet and last month’s $24.5 million round for Qumulo. Also, it marks the latest deal for Gadre, the former Facebook and Amazon.com executive who also emerged last week as a backer of Seattle startup Yabbly.

Over 70 million workers are paid hourly, representing 59 percent of all wage and salary workers in the U.S. These workers are the heart of small businesses, as well as the backbone of large corporations. They comprise a key element for the macroeconomic growth of a country and the well-being of millions of families.

Here’s a quick look at what Jobaline is trying to do.

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