AI recruiting funding tracker (121 deals)

Our funding tracker covering the AI recruiting market

Below is the table listing all the deals. You may find our methodology at the end of this page.

And, if you want to gain a deeper understanding of the market and its current dynamics, get our report covering the AI recruiting market.

Is AI recruiting really attracting that much investment?

AI recruiting has attracted nearly $1.19 billion in recorded funding across our tracked cohort, but most startups are raising far less money than the headline total suggests.

We tracked 121 financing transactions involving 103 companies between January 1, 2024, and September 30, 2026. The average deal was $9.83 million, while the median was only $3.4 million. That gap comes from a handful of exceptionally large rounds.

Loxo's $115 million growth transaction, Mercor's $100 million Series B and Juicebox's $80 million Series B contributed $295 million between them. Meanwhile, 77 financings had recorded or indicative amounts below $5 million, although one of those amounts is a disclosed minimum rather than an exact figure.

The market is clearly attracting serious investors. The catch is that most of the money goes to a relatively small group of companies that have already moved beyond early product development.

Remove the four transactions larger than $50 million, and recorded funding falls to approximately $835 million. That's still substantial, but it gives us a better sense of the capital available outside the biggest deals.

One distinction is important from the start. These figures describe the 121 transactions classified in our research database, rather than every financing known to have occurred anywhere in AI recruiting during the period. The recorded total includes approximate currency conversions and one financing recorded at a disclosed minimum.

How many AI recruiting startups are actually getting funded?

We identified 103 funded AI recruiting companies, and 87 of them appeared in just one financing transaction during the 33-month period.

Another 14 companies raised twice, while only two appeared three times.

The distinction between deals and companies is especially important here. Metaview, Juicebox and Ashby appear multiple times because they secured successive investments. Most businesses in our research have only one recorded financing within the period.

There's also a sizeable group of very young companies. Based on recorded founding years for distinct companies, 16 were created in 2023 and another 17 in 2024. Many of these businesses emerged as generative AI made it easier to automate candidate sourcing, interviews and recruitment administration.

Alongside them are older recruiting platforms that began incorporating AI into established products.

We therefore have a fairly broad startup market, but relatively few companies have already demonstrated that investors are willing to finance them repeatedly within this observation window.

Is most AI recruiting funding going to the same few companies?

Yes. The ten largest AI recruiting companies captured approximately 63.8% of all recorded capital, leaving the other 93 companies competing for just over a third.

Mercor ranks first with $133.6 million across three recorded financings. Loxo follows at $115 million, Juicebox at $110 million and Metaview at $102 million.

These four businesses accumulated approximately $461 million, even though they account for fewer than 4% of the funded companies.

Looking at repeat financing tells us even more. The 16 companies that raised money more than once captured approximately $668 million, equivalent to 56.1% of the market's recorded total.

At the other end, 68 companies accumulated no more than $5 million each. Only seven crossed $50 million in cumulative funding within the tracked cohort.

The larger companies are gradually pulling away. They have the funding to expand their products, recruit experienced teams and compete for enterprise customers, while much of the market is still financing its first commercial steps.

The following ranking includes only transactions present in the tracked database. It should not be confused with the companies' complete historical funding totals.

Company	Recorded rounds	Capital raised
Mercor	3	$133.6M
Loxo	1	$115.0M
Juicebox	2	$110.0M
Metaview	3	$102.0M
Ashby	2	$80.0M
Jack & Jill	2	$60.0M
Paraform	2	$60.0M
Findem	1	$36.0M
Humanly	2	$32.0M
Thalamus	1	$30.0M

How much money can a typical AI recruiting startup raise today?

A typical funded AI recruiting startup raises around $3 million to $4 million per round, with much larger checks generally reserved for companies that have already established a business.

The median financing across the market is $3.4 million. Seed rounds have a median of $2.8 million, compared with $11 million at Series A and $32.5 million at Series B.

Those amounts reflect very different situations.

A company developing its first AI interviewing agent may be raising a few million dollars to hire engineers, improve its product and find customers. By Series A, investors usually expect stronger evidence that businesses will pay for the technology and continue using it.

At Series B, the financing can support international expansion, larger sales teams and more substantial product development.

Our figures describe completed financings, so they cannot tell founders their probability of successfully raising capital. They do, however, show what investors have actually been willing to fund.

For most companies, a single-digit-million financing remains the more useful reference point. The $50 million and $100 million announcements sit at the very top of the tracked market.

Which types of AI recruiting startups are getting the most money?

Candidate matching, recruiting CRM and recruiting copilots currently attract the largest share of AI recruiting investment, while standalone screening and assessment tools receive much smaller checks.

Candidate Matching & CRM is the biggest category, with $497.75 million across 37 transactions. Recruiting Copilots follows at approximately $278 million, then Candidate Sourcing AI at $190.25 million.

Together, these three categories account for about $966 million, or 81.2% of recorded funding.

The common theme is that investors are backing companies trying to handle a substantial part of the recruitment process.

Loxo combines applicant tracking, candidate relationship management, sourcing and matching within one system. Ashby integrates recruiting operations, analytics, scheduling and AI functionality. Metaview has expanded from interview intelligence toward agents operating across recruitment workflows.

Companies that become central to recruiters' daily work have more room to expand their products and customer relationships than businesses selling a single isolated feature.

AI interviewing is still an active category, with 23 financing events, but its $151.68 million total is considerably smaller.

Resume screening is at the other extreme. Just four recorded deals attracted $9.5 million.

These are primary classifications assigned to each financing in the dataset. A company selling several recruiting products is counted once per transaction, under its assigned category, rather than having its funding spread across every feature it offers.

AI recruiting category	Deals	Companies	Capital raised	Median round
Candidate Matching & CRM	37	30	$497.75M	$4.00M
Recruiting Copilots	29	26	$277.96M	$3.50M
Candidate Sourcing AI	19	15	$190.25M	$3.00M
AI Interviewing	23	20	$151.68M	$4.05M
Skills & Assessment AI	8	7	$32.42M	$3.05M
Scheduling & Coordination	1	1	$30.00M	$30.00M
Resume Screening AI	4	4	$9.50M	$2.50M

Why did Juicebox raise $80 million for AI recruiting?

Juicebox attracted an $80 million Series B because its AI recruiting platform had already reached thousands of customers and was expanding from candidate search into automated sourcing workflows.

The company announced the financing in March 2026, with DST Global leading the round and Sequoia Capital, Coatue and other investors participating. Juicebox reported an $850 million valuation.

More interestingly, it said over 5,000 recruiting teams were using the platform, including teams at companies such as Cursor, Ramp and Samsara.

Juicebox began by making it easier for recruiters to search for candidates using natural language. Its product has since expanded into outreach workflows and autonomous sourcing agents.

That expansion addresses a specific problem: AI has made submitting job applications much easier, creating more incoming applications for recruiters to process. Proactively finding suitable candidates can become more attractive when inbound applications are difficult to filter.

Juicebox said it would use the financing for product development, global expansion and hiring.

Investors were financing an established product with reported commercial adoption and opportunities to expand into more of the recruiting workflow.

Juicebox also continued releasing new agent capabilities during 2026, including conversational sourcing agents capable of adjusting search strategies based on recruiter feedback.

The $80 million round accounts for approximately 42% of all funding recorded in Candidate Sourcing AI. One successful platform therefore has a major influence on the category's apparent financial strength.

Is AI interviewing becoming a serious business?

AI interviewing is already attracting meaningful venture investment, with 20 funded companies and several businesses moving beyond their initial Seed rounds.

We recorded 23 interviewing financings totaling $151.68 million. The median round is $4.05 million, slightly above the overall market median.

The products are becoming more ambitious than simple automated interview questionnaires.

Alex, formerly associated with the Apriora branding, develops AI agents capable of conducting voice and video interviews. The company announced a $17 million Series A in September 2025, led by Peak XV Partners.

Maki secured a $28.6 million Series A, while Take2 AI raised $14 million in February 2026 to expand autonomous recruiting agents focused on healthcare.

These companies address different hiring environments. Alex targets automated candidate screening across employers, Maki develops conversational assessment and interviewing technology, and Take2 focuses on the staffing problems faced by healthcare organizations.

Humanly offers another useful example. In 2026, it announced a $25 million Series B led by SEEK Investments to expand AI hiring technology for frontline and high-volume recruitment, including candidate engagement and structured interviewing.

These financings show that automated interviewing has moved beyond experimentation.

Still, most interviewing companies remain relatively lightly funded. Investors have backed a wide range of products, but only a few businesses have attracted the kinds of checks seen in the largest sourcing and integrated-platform companies.

Why are investors giving so little money to AI resume screening?

Standalone AI resume screening has attracted very little venture capital in our cohort, with just $9.5 million across four financings and no recorded transaction reaching $5 million.

Skills and assessment companies are doing somewhat better, with $32.42 million across eight deals, although none reached Series B or later during the period.

There are several plausible reasons for this difference.

Resume ranking and candidate scoring can be features inside a larger applicant tracking system rather than independent products that employers buy separately.

Ashby, Loxo and other recruiting platforms already offer combinations of sourcing, candidate management and AI-assisted evaluation. Interviewing products can also incorporate assessment capabilities.

As more recruiting workflows become automated, investors may prefer products that control the broader process rather than one screening step.

Take2 AI is an interesting example of how a company can move beyond a narrow feature. Its healthcare-focused agents handle candidate interactions within a specific industry where recruitment delays can be particularly costly.

Financing data alone cannot establish whether standalone screening businesses face lower customer demand or more competition from integrated platforms.

But the funding gap is striking. These categories have not yet produced the same large, repeatedly funded companies that we see elsewhere in the tracked AI recruiting market.

Does Mercor's funding really belong in the AI recruiting market?

Mercor's funding belongs in a broad analysis of AI recruiting, but the company's business has moved far beyond traditional recruitment software.

Mercor is the largest company in our classified funding cohort, with $133.6 million across three recorded transactions.

Its February 2025 Series B announcement made its strategy unusually clear. Mercor described its immediate focus as connecting specialized contractors with work advancing frontier AI research.

That activity involves recruiting and matching people to opportunities, but the customers and economics are different from those of a conventional employer buying recruiting software.

Mercor connects experts with AI companies that need human knowledge for model development, evaluation and other specialized work.

The distinction became even clearer in October 2025, when Mercor announced a $350 million Series C at a $10 billion valuation and described its role in supplying human expertise to AI laboratories.

There is an important accounting issue here. That $350 million announcement falls inside our January 2024 to September 2026 observation window, but it does not appear among the 121 classified transactions used to calculate the $1.19 billion total.

Including that transaction mechanically would lift the combined amount from approximately $1.19 billion to $1.54 billion, before reconsidering Mercor's market classification. It would also make Mercor an even more dominant recipient of capital. We have kept the original cohort unchanged rather than inserting one additional financing selectively, but the omission means the database total should not be presented as a complete census of all market funding.

Loxo presents a different classification challenge. Its $115 million transaction backed a mature recruiting platform expanding its AI functionality, rather than a recently founded AI-native startup. The transaction's precise primary-versus-secondary composition is also not established by the headline amount.

Mercor, Loxo and Juicebox therefore represent three distinct investment cases: expert labor infrastructure for AI development, established recruiting software and AI-native candidate sourcing.

Grouping all three gives us a useful picture of the broader recruiting technology economy. Anyone assessing pure AI recruiting software needs to separate those business models, and should not treat the resulting total as a clean measure of AI-native recruiting venture investment.

Are AI recruiting startups raising big rounds while they're still young?

Most AI recruiting companies raise their first substantial funding within their first few years, although the largest financings generally involve more mature businesses.

The median company age at financing is two years, and the average is approximately 3.36 years.

Seed companies have a median age of two years. That rises to 3.5 years at Series A and 6.5 years at Series B.

The typical company receiving more than $50 million is six years old.

Mercor is the standout exception. It raised a $100 million Series B roughly two years after its recorded founding, reflecting unusually rapid growth and investor demand for its business.

On the other side, established companies such as Loxo belong to an older generation of recruiting platforms that have had much longer to develop customer relationships and products.

The two Growth Equity transactions in our research involve businesses with a median age of 11.5 years.

Company age helps explain where larger checks go, but the differences between business models are just as important.

A young company growing extremely quickly can attract growth funding much earlier than normal. An established platform may raise a large amount because it already has years of commercial operations behind it.

Why do so few AI recruiting startups make it to Series B or Series C?

AI recruiting has a clear funding bottleneck after Seed, with only eight Series B and three Series C financings recorded across the entire period.

We counted 77 Seed transactions and 20 Series A rounds. The next steps are much less common.

Only one Series D+ transaction appears, alongside two Growth Equity deals that sit outside the standard venture financing sequence.

The pattern shows how much harder it is to find companies receiving major expansion capital than companies attracting initial backing.

However, the stage counts should not be mistaken for graduation or failure rates. Many Seed recipients are still young, and their next financing may occur outside the period. Some later-stage companies also completed earlier rounds before our observation window.

The contrast in money raised is striking. Seed financings account for approximately $237 million, while eight Series B deals alone represent almost $327 million.

Ashby's July 2025 $50 million Series D gives us a useful example of what more mature financing can look like. The company reported over 2,700 customers, 135% year-over-year revenue growth and a 170% increase in interviews scheduled through its platform.

It also said that much of its previous Series C capital remained unused.

By comparison, many younger AI interviewing, screening and sourcing startups are still establishing commercial traction.

There is no shortage of companies raising initial money. The much smaller pool of businesses receiving repeated large checks is where the market's financing depth starts to look thin.

Financing stage	Deals	Recorded capital	Median round
Seed	77	$236.66M	$2.80M
Series A	20	$283.96M	$11.00M
Series B	8	$326.90M	$32.50M
Series C	3	$126.00M	$36.00M
Series D+	1	$50.00M	$50.00M
Growth Equity	2	$119.00M	$59.50M
Unknown	10	$47.04M	$5.10M

Are investors still backing brand-new AI recruiting startups?

New AI recruiting startups are still getting financed, but previously funded companies receive nearly four-fifths of the money.

We identified 49 transactions classified as first financings, representing 40.5% of deal activity.

Those transactions contributed approximately $263 million, while 72 follow-on financings accounted for more than $926 million.

There is still room for new businesses offering AI interviewers, recruiting agents, candidate sourcing tools and industry-specific hiring automation.

At the same time, investors are putting much larger amounts behind companies that have already demonstrated enough progress to secure additional rounds.

Metaview illustrates that progression. In September 2026, it announced a $60 million Series C led by Insight Partners, reporting that more than 7,000 companies were using its technology.

Metaview originally concentrated on capturing and analyzing recruiting conversations. Its newer products expand into AI agents designed to handle larger parts of the recruiting process.

Humanly has also continued extending its product beyond its initial focus. Its April 2026 acquisition of Anthill added post-hire employee engagement capabilities.

These are companies expanding their commercial role after establishing an initial product, which helps explain why investors are willing to commit larger amounts.

The continued presence of first financings means the market remains open to newcomers, even as existing companies absorb most of the capital.

The distinction here is between transactions labeled as first financing or follow-on in the database, not simply between companies appearing once or multiple times during our study. A follow-on investment can be the only transaction we observe for a company within these 33 months.

Is the United States dominating AI recruiting investment?

The United States is the clear leader in AI recruiting funding by dollars, but Europe has slightly more funded companies and financing transactions.

North America attracted approximately $766 million across 49 deals. Europe recorded 54 deals but received about $359 million.

That means Europe has more financing activity, while North America captures more than twice as much money.

The median North American check is also noticeably larger, at $5 million compared with $2.67 million in Europe.

Within North America, the United States accounts for approximately $751 million across 45 transactions.

The United Kingdom is Europe's strongest funding center, with around $221 million across 20 deals. Metaview, Jack & Jill and TERN Group help explain its position.

Beyond these two regions, financing becomes much thinner. Asia-Pacific accounts for only $44.56 million, while the Middle East, Latin America and Africa collectively attract approximately $20.5 million.

No transaction above $50 million appears outside North America and Europe in our collected data.

Some geographical differences may reflect the visibility of private financing announcements or where companies choose to establish their headquarters. Nevertheless, the gap in recorded check sizes is substantial.

Europe is producing plenty of funded AI recruiting companies. The United States currently offers much stronger evidence of access to large-scale venture capital.

Region	Deals	Companies	Capital raised	Median round
North America	49	41	$765.78M	$5.00M
Europe	54	44	$358.71M	$2.67M
Asia-Pacific	12	12	$44.56M	$3.09M
Middle East	3	3	$9.60M	$3.10M
Latin America	1	1	$7.00M	$7.00M
Africa	2	2	$3.91M	$1.95M

Which venture capital firms keep investing in AI recruiting?

AI recruiting has attracted plenty of venture capital firms, but very few investors repeatedly lead rounds across the market.

We identified 113 unique named lead or co-lead investors among the financings where leadership information was available.

Only five investors appeared as leaders on two transactions. None appeared on three or more.

Felicis is one of the most notable names, associated with two financings whose combined round values total $120 million. Lachy Groom also appears twice, across rounds totaling $80 million.

Notion Capital, IvyCap Ventures and 1984 Ventures complete the group of repeat leads.

These figures refer to the full size of rounds in which an investor participated as lead or co-lead, rather than the amount personally invested.

The large financings also involve prominent venture firms that are not necessarily recurring leaders throughout this particular dataset.

DST Global led Juicebox's $80 million Series B. Sequoia Capital led its earlier $30 million Series A. Insight Partners led Metaview's $60 million Series C, while Alkeon led Ashby's $50 million Series D with Lachy Groom as co-lead.

Well-known investors are backing individual companies, but no single firm repeatedly leads a large proportion of the market's deals.

For founders, access to capital appears spread across a broad investor base rather than concentrated in a small set of specialist AI recruiting funds. That does not necessarily make fundraising easier, but it does mean there are multiple types of potential backers.

Are recruitment companies themselves investing in AI recruiting startups?

Corporate and strategic investors participate in AI recruiting, but they appear in only 8.3% of recorded financing transactions.

Ten of the 121 deals include a named strategic participant.

Among the organizations involved are Bullhorn Ventures, Deel Ventures, SEEK Investments, CareerNet and Mediahuis-affiliated investment entities.

Their interest makes commercial sense. Recruitment software companies, staffing groups and employment marketplaces have reasons to invest in technology that could improve candidate search, interviewing or recruitment operations.

SEEK Investments' participation in Humanly's $25 million Series B is a particularly relevant example. Humanly is expanding AI-powered hiring for employers dealing with large numbers of candidates, including those in retail, healthcare, hospitality and logistics.

The Association of American Medical Colleges also appears among the strategic participants, showing that interest in recruitment technology extends into specialized professional hiring.

However, strategic investors do not appear to drive significantly larger round sizes.

The median financing involving a strategic investor is $3.5 million, compared with $3.4 million for deals without an identified strategic participant.

Corporate investment may provide valuable industry relationships or distribution opportunities, but those benefits have to be assessed company by company. A strategic investor appearing on a financing announcement is not proof of customer traction.

For now, the AI recruiting funding market is primarily shaped by venture investors rather than a large wave of strategic stakes by established recruitment companies.

Is AI recruiting investment growing steadily, or is the funding activity unpredictable?

AI recruiting funding has been highly uneven, with a few exceptional months accounting for much more money than the rest.

Across the 33-month period, we recorded an average of 3.67 deals per month, with a median of three.

The monthly capital figures are much more volatile. The average month attracted approximately $36 million, while the median received only $13.58 million.

February 2025 was the biggest funding month, reaching $242.03 million across six deals. Loxo's $115 million transaction and Mercor's $100 million Series B accounted for almost 89% of that total.

September 2025 recorded nine deals, the highest monthly transaction count, despite attracting substantially less capital.

The difference shows how easily one or two large transactions can change the apparent funding picture.

More recently, September 2026 generated $121 million from only three deals. Metaview's $60 million Series C represented a major part of that activity.

The market has continued producing substantial financings, but the pattern remains irregular. We cannot infer a smooth upward funding trend from a few record-breaking months, particularly given the boundaries of the classified dataset.

Investors continue to finance a broad group of young companies while occasionally committing much larger sums to selected platforms. Monthly dollar totals jump around much more than the number of deals.

What is still holding the AI recruiting funding market back?

The biggest weakness in AI recruiting funding is the shortage of companies that have demonstrated they can repeatedly raise substantial growth capital.

There are plenty of early-stage businesses and several impressive financing successes. But the number of companies reaching Series C or later remains small.

The shortage is especially visible in resume screening and skills assessment, where no later-stage rounds appear in the tracked cohort.

AI interviewing has more depth in company formation, although the category still receives less capital than sourcing and broader recruiting platforms.

The geographic picture is also uneven. North America attracts almost two-thirds of recorded capital, while most other regions have very few large rounds.

Another limitation is the mixture of business models included under AI recruiting.

Mercor benefits from demand for specialist expertise among AI developers. Loxo represents established recruiting software. Juicebox, Alex and Take2 AI sell different forms of AI-powered recruitment technology.

These companies may all benefit from advances in AI, but their customers, revenue models and growth requirements differ considerably.

The market currently has a handful of clear financing successes without a large, established group of later-stage companies across every major recruiting function.

The next test will be whether more of today's Seed and Series A recipients build businesses strong enough to follow the financing paths of companies such as Metaview, Ashby and Juicebox.

Fundraising alone will not answer that question. Customer retention, hiring outcomes, implementation costs and the ability to expand beyond a single recruiting feature will ultimately determine which companies deserve the next generation of large checks.

What should we actually take away from the AI recruiting funding data?

AI recruiting has become a serious venture-funded market, but its financial strength is still concentrated in a relatively small number of companies.

The $1.19 billion tracked total reflects substantial investor interest. Yet the median financing remains only $3.4 million, which is much closer to what most successfully funded companies are experiencing.

The market's 103 funded businesses show that startup formation is active. The harder challenge is scaling. Only 16 companies completed multiple observed financings, and the number of Series C and later rounds remains very small.

Investors have shown the strongest willingness to write large checks for companies involved in sourcing, candidate management and broader recruiting workflows. Juicebox, Metaview, Ashby and Loxo help illustrate why products embedded deeply in hiring operations can attract substantial capital.

AI interviewing also has a healthy population of funded companies, while standalone resume screening and assessment have yet to demonstrate comparable growth-financing depth.

Geographically, Europe produces plenty of funded businesses, but the United States dominates the largest financing transactions.

The investor base is broad, with relatively little repeat leadership from individual venture firms and limited strategic corporate participation.

Finally, we need to be careful about what counts as AI recruiting. Mercor's expert-labor business, established recruiting platforms and newer AI-native tools are competing for different opportunities. Combining their funding is useful for understanding a broad recruiting technology cohort, but it cannot establish the size of a narrower, pure-play AI recruiting software market.

And because the tracked transactions omit at least one major announced financing during the observation period, the $1.19 billion figure should be read as a consistent database subtotal rather than an exhaustive market-wide total.

AI recruiting looks like a market where investors are willing to fund plenty of new ideas and make exceptional commitments to a few companies that gain traction.

What remains to be proven is how many more businesses can turn early investment into lasting commercial scale.