Juicebox raises $30M from Sequoia to revolutionize hiring with LLM-powered search

For years, recruiters used machine learning to find potential employees by searching for keywords in CVs and LinkedIn profiles. Although this method helps to limit the candidate pool, recruiters still have to view each profile manually to determine the best fit for the task.

David Paffenholz (shown left) and Ishan Gupta, then only 22 and 19, realized that LLMS could find talent faster and more efficiently. They have built Juice boxAn AI-driven 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 few more years refining their product. When their AI search engine, peoplegpt, was ready at the end of 2023, it was quickly taken over by a wide range of customers, from small startups to large companies such as cognition, slope and confusing.

In a short period it served more than 2500 customers and achieved more than $ 10 million in annual income (ARR).

On Thursday, Juicebox announced that it had collected $ 36 million in total financing, including a series A round of $ 30 million under the leadership of Sequoia.

Sequoia partner David Cahn learned about the company while catching up an early stage founder of Startup who said he was using Juicebox for all his recruitment efforts. Cahn told WAN that the founder has hired more than a dozen people without using a professional recruiter, something that was previously very difficult to do.

Cahn has aroused such a praising review of Juicebox’s interest. Shortly thereafter, Cahn heard that the internal recruiter of Sequoia also tried Juicebox to help the company with his own recruitment efforts, making him even more enthusiastic about the growth potential of the startup.

When Cahn finally met Paffenholz and Gupta, he was even more impressed.

“I am not sure if I have ever seen a company in my career with four people who have received 2,000 customers with that small team,” Cahn told WAN.

Although Juicebox has since hired eight extra employees, the company continues to attract customers without a sales team.

Customers partly come to Juicebox, partly because the recruitment speed is extremely important for companies that race to build AI functionalities.

What distinguishes the Juicebox search engine is the ability to lead information about candidates, just like a person.

“We help find new new candidates that would not be found elsewhere, because the profiles may not have the keywords or the types of things that we would expect to have in the regular searches,” Paffenholz told WAN.

The product of the startup is not only popular with small companies that miss a dedicated recruiter, but also with talent teams at large companies. By automating the candidate search, the Tool frees internal recruiters to concentrate more on building relationships with potential employees.

As soon as JuiceBox identifies candidates, the agent can automatically e -mail them and plan initial calls.

While Juicebox is growing rapidly, older startups of talent acquisition such as Eightfold also add AI-driven search functionality to their offer.

Nevertheless, Cahn is convinced that Paffenholz and Gupta Juicebox can transform into an essential product for the technological stack of each startup.

“We have invested in a number of companies that become standard for startups, such as Stripe,” he said. “I think Juicebox has the chance to be a standard, where every startup, [it’s] The first thing they use to hire their first employees. “