Perfect Secures $23M to Enhance Recruitment with AI

In the fast-paced world of AI development, "Agentic AI" has become the buzzword that's capturing everyone's attention. From small startups to industry giants, there's a race to create applications that simplify the use of generative AI in specific scenarios. Investors are eagerly pouring money into the most promising ventures, eager to be part of this technological revolution.

A prime example of this trend is Perfect, an Israeli startup that's shaking up the recruitment industry. Perfect has just secured a hefty $23 million in seed funding, a testament to the confidence investors have in its vision. The platform serves as a co-pilot for recruiters, streamlining the process of crafting job posts, deciding where to advertise them, and managing the flood of responses. While it collaborates with established players like Indeed, Recruiter, and LinkedIn, Perfect also positions itself as a direct competitor.

The impact of Perfect is significant, with the company claiming to save recruiters up to 25 hours per week. Since quietly launching a year ago, Perfect has expanded its customer base from an initial 20 to an impressive 200 businesses, including notable names like Fiverr, eToro, McCann, and Coralogix.

From Facial Recognition to Candidate Selection

Perfect's journey began with Eylon Etshtein, the founder of the controversial facial recognition startup AnyVision. Etshtein's hands-on approach to hiring at AnyVision made him acutely aware of the scalability challenges in recruitment. Inspired by his experience in finding the proverbial "needle in a haystack," he envisioned a platform that could understand and automate the hiring process.

After stepping away from AnyVision amid its pivot towards "resilience" tech for government and defense sectors, Etshtein set his sights on revolutionizing recruitment. Perfect stands out in a crowded market of AI-based HR startups because it's built entirely from scratch, without relying on third-party large language models. Instead, it uses a proprietary vector dataset, sourced and cleaned from large recruitment businesses.

Etshtein emphasized that when Perfect was founded, tools like ChatGPT didn't exist, and there was no framework for building a career trajectory algorithm that could analyze a candidate's past and present to predict their future. Despite the rise of large language models, Perfect's pre-ChatGPT work remains relevant, as these models struggle with the large data payloads typical in recruitment.

The funding announcement comes in two parts: an initial $12 million equity investment from Target Global, RTP Global, Pitango, and others, followed by an interest-free SAFE note from Hanaco Ventures, Joule Ventures, and Young Sohn, the former president of Samsung and a board member at Arm.

Lior Prosor, a partner at Hanaco Ventures, praised Perfect's approach, saying, "In an industry desperate for true innovation, with both agencies and candidates victims of outdated, manual workflows or half-baked AI solutions, Perfect is utilizing proprietary data sets, and integrating into industry-specific workflows to completely transform how recruitment operates, automating a vast majority of their customers’ day-to-day tasks."

Recruitment is a prime target for AI applications due to its inherent inefficiencies. Whether dealing with an overwhelming number of applicants or struggling to attract candidates, the process is often likened to finding a "needle in a haystack." Perfect isn't alone in this space, facing competition from companies like LinkedIn, HiBob, Workable, Maki, Mercor, Tezi, and SeekOut, among others.

Looking ahead, Perfect plans to enhance its tools for recruiters and introduce a free tool for job seekers, aiming to improve their job search efforts while gathering valuable data for future projects.