Elly, the AI-powered hiring platform developed by Recruit Tech Labs, has launched publicly alongside an $8 million funding round led by Sorenson Capital, with participation from Atomic and Next Wave Capital. As part of the investment, Rob Rueckert, partner at Sorenson Capital’s venture and growth funds, has joined Elly’s board of directors.
The company is positioning itself as an AI-native alternative to legacy applicant tracking systems and fragmented recruiting software stacks. Rather than requiring recruiters to manually update multiple tools or operate within rigid workflows, Elly integrates sourcing, interviewing, and applicant tracking into a unified platform built from the ground up with artificial intelligence.
Recruiting teams today often manage five or more disconnected systems, creating inefficiencies for recruiters, interviewers, and candidates alike. Candidates are frequently asked to repeat information, interviewers lack full context, and recruiters spend significant time coordinating logistics instead of evaluating talent. Elly aims to address these challenges by automatically capturing hiring activity as it unfolds and surfacing relevant insights without manual data entry.
The platform is designed to interpret unstructured conversations and evolving feedback in real time. Interviews, screenings, and internal discussions become structured, searchable signals that accumulate over time. Instead of treating interviews as isolated events, Elly positions them as reusable assets that improve hiring decisions as volume increases.
By understanding what candidates have already shared and how team opinions evolve, Elly enables interviewers to start with context and maintain continuity throughout the hiring process. The system keeps next steps visible as decisions take shape, allowing recruiters to focus more on judgment and less on administrative upkeep.
Early customers across technology, construction, manufacturing, healthcare, and hospitality are already using Elly to manage active hiring pipelines. According to the company, teams have reported measurable time savings, including up to 1 hour and 45 minutes saved per candidate on interview write-ups and documentation, 3 to 5 hours saved per week by reducing manual note-taking and follow-ups, and 5 to 10 hours saved per week by replacing live screening calls with targeted interview reviews.
The new funding will support continued product development, expansion of Elly’s AI capabilities, customer growth, and scaling of sales and marketing efforts. Created within venture studio Atomic, Elly was built specifically for the evolving demands of modern recruiting teams seeking to reduce complexity rather than add to it.
KEY QUOTES
“Recruiting teams are overwhelmed by software that was never designed to reflect how hiring actually works. Elly flips that model by understanding the reasoning behind choices as they form. When the platform knows what’s happening, recruiters can focus on evaluating candidates instead of administering technology.”
Kristen Habacht, CEO of Elly
“We’ve backed Kristen before and seen firsthand how she builds products that actually fit how people work. Elly understands hiring judgment as it forms, not after the fact. That fundamentally changes how recruiting teams operate—they stop managing software and start making better hires.”
Rob Rueckert, Partner at Sorenson Capital
