For years, recruiters used machine learning to find potential hires by searching for keywords in resumes and LinkedIn profiles. Although this method helps to narrow the candidate pool, recruiters still have to manually review each profile to determine the best fit for the job.
David Paffenholz (pictured left) and Ishan Gupta, then just 22 and 19, realized that LLMs could find talent faster and more efficiently. They built Juicebox, an AI-powered search engine that uses natural language to analyze professional profiles, personal websites, and other publicly available information to identify the most qualified candidates.
After attending startup accelerator Y Combinator in the summer of 2022, Paffenholz and Gupta spent a couple more years refining their product. When their AI search engine, PeopleGPT, was ready in late 2023, it was quickly adopted by a wide range of customers, from small startups to large companies like Cogntion, Ramp, and Perplexity.
In a short period of time, it was serving over 2,500 customers and achieving more than $10 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR).
On Thursday, Juicebox announced that it had raised $36 million in total funding, including a $30 million Series A round led by Sequoia.
Sequoia partner David Cahn learned about the company while catching up with an early-stage startup founder who said that he is using Juicebox for all of his recruiting efforts. Cahn told TechCrunch that the founder has hired over a dozen people without using a professional recruiter, something that was previously very difficult to do.
Such a rave review of Juicebox piqued Cahn’s interest. Shortly after, Cahn learned that Sequoia’s internal recruiter was also trying Juicebox to help the firm with its own hiring efforts, which made him even more excited about the startup’s growth potential.
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When Cahn eventually met with Paffenholz and Gupta, he was even more impressed.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever in my career seen a company with four people that got to 2,000 customers with that small of a team,” Sequoia partner David Cahn told TechCrunch.
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