For years, recruiters used machine studying to search out potential hires by trying to find key phrases in résumés and LinkedIn profiles. Though this methodology helps to slim the candidate pool, recruiters nonetheless need to manually overview every profile to find out the very best match for the job.
David Paffenholz (pictured left) and Ishan Gupta, then simply 22 and 19, respectively, realized that LLMs might discover expertise sooner and extra effectively. They constructed Juicebox, an AI-powered search engine that makes use of pure language to investigate skilled profiles, private web sites, and different publicly obtainable info to determine essentially the most certified candidates.
After attending startup accelerator Y Combinator in the summertime of 2022, Paffenholz and Gupta spent a pair extra years refining their product. When their AI search engine, PeopleGPT, was prepared in late 2023, it was rapidly adopted by a variety of shoppers, from small startups to giant corporations like Cognition, Ramp, and Perplexity.
In a brief time frame, it was serving over 2,500 prospects and reaching greater than $10 million in annual recurring income (ARR).
On Thursday, Juicebox introduced that it had raised $36 million in complete funding, together with a $30 million Sequence A spherical led by Sequoia.
Sequoia companion David Cahn discovered in regards to the firm whereas catching up with an early-stage startup founder who stated that he’s utilizing Juicebox for all of his recruiting efforts. Cahn advised TechCrunch that the founder has employed over a dozen individuals with out utilizing an expert recruiter, one thing that was beforehand very troublesome to do.
Such a rave overview of Juicebox piqued Cahn’s curiosity. Shortly after, Cahn discovered that Sequoia’s inner recruiter was additionally making an attempt Juicebox to assist the agency with its personal hiring efforts, which made him much more excited in regards to the startup’s development potential.
Techcrunch occasion
San Francisco
|
October 27-29, 2025
When Cahn finally met with Paffenholz and Gupta, he was much more impressed.
“I’m undecided I’ve ever in my profession seen an organization with 4 those who bought to 2,000 prospects with that small of a staff,” Cahn advised TechCrunch.
Though Juicebox has since employed eight extra staff, the corporate continues to draw prospects with no gross sales staff.
Clients are flocking to Juicebox partially as a result of hiring pace is extraordinarily essential for corporations racing to construct AI functionalities.
What units Juicebox’s search engine aside is its means to deduce details about candidates very like a human would.
“We assist discover internet new candidates that wouldn’t be discovered elsewhere, as a result of the profiles may not have the key phrases or the sorts of issues that we’d anticipate them to have within the common searches,” Paffenholz advised TechCrunch.
The startup’s product is well-liked not solely with small corporations that lack a devoted recruiter, but in addition with expertise groups at giant companies. By automating the candidate search, the device frees up inner recruiters to focus extra on constructing relationships with potential hires.
As soon as Juicebox identifies candidates, its agent can routinely e-mail them and schedule preliminary calls.
Whereas Juicebox is rising rapidly, older expertise acquisition startups like Eightfold are additionally including AI-powered search performance to their choices.
Nonetheless, Cahn is satisfied that Paffenholz and Gupta can rework Juicebox into a necessary product for each startup’s know-how stack.
“We’ve invested in a variety of companies that grow to be defaults for startups, like Stripe,” he stated. “I believe Juicebox has an opportunity to be a default the place, each single startup, [it’s] the very first thing they use to rent their first staff.”