Juicebox, the AI recruiting startup founded by David Paffenholz and Ishan Gupta, has secured $36 million in total funding, including a $30 million Series A led by Sequoia Capital. The company’s AI-powered search engine, PeopleGPT, leverages large language models to analyze professional profiles, personal websites, and public data to identify top talent beyond traditional keyword searches.
After graduating from Y Combinator in 2022, Juicebox rapidly grew its customer base to more than 2,500 organizations, including Cognition, Ramp, and Perplexity, and achieved over $10 million in annual recurring revenue. Sequoia partner David Cahn praised the company’s ability to scale with minimal staff and no sales team, underscoring its efficiency and strong product-led growth.
PeopleGPT’s ability to infer candidate qualifications in natural language, rather than rely on rigid keyword filters, has made it a popular tool among startups and enterprise recruiting teams alike. By automating sourcing, outreach, and scheduling, Juicebox enables companies to hire faster in an increasingly competitive AI talent market. The funding will support continued product development and expansion as Juicebox positions itself as a foundational recruiting tool for the next generation of AI-driven organizations.
Featured image: Credit: Juicebox
