Paraform, a hiring marketplace built for elite recruiters, announced its $20 million in Series A funding led by Felicis, with participation from A*, BOND, DST Global, Liquid 2, and notable angels including the co-founders of Canva, Instacart, YouTube, and xAI, along with Shyam Sankar, Harley Finklestein, Mark Pincus, and others. The funding follows a 40 times revenue growth since Paraform’s 2024 seed round, bringing the company’s total funding to $25 million.
How the funding will be used: Paraform plans to utilize the funding to scale its platform to meet the surging demand from startups and enterprises alike, deepen product development, and expand its global community of recruiters. Large enterprises, such as Palantir, as well as fast-growing companies including Cursor, Windsurf, Decagon, and Hightouch, utilize Paraform to connect with expert recruiters and fill their most challenging-to-fill roles.
Problem being addressed: Although generative AI has flooded the recruiting space with tools for parsing resumes, automating outreach, and conducting interviews, these tools often overlook what truly matters. And what businesses need more is the quality of the candidates they hire, rather than automation. AI is unable to evaluate soft skills, predict team dynamics, or assess whether a candidate will make a meaningful contribution to long-term success.
Companies depend on Paraform to fill their most critical roles, like forward-deployed engineers with security clearances or founding sales hires. And with Paraform, these companies gain instant access to a high-quality network of independent recruiters and search firms through a streamlined platform that replaces lengthy agency searches. Paraform delivers vetted candidates quickly, utilizing tools that surface better-aligned candidates and expedite hiring decisions.
Through Paraform, recruiters can focus on what they do best: building relationships, advocating for talent, and closing hires. Paraform also provides recruiters with tools that enhance their effectiveness, like AI-based candidate relationship management, call transcription, sourcing tools, and workflow automations that save time without sacrificing quality. And since they are free to work across companies and roles, recruiters on Paraform earn three to five times more than they would in traditional agency or in-house roles.
KEY QUOTES:
“The macroenvironment and rapid evolution of AI are causing massive dislocations in how tech companies operate—and how they hire. Our conviction is that in this new era, highly skilled recruiters are more important than ever, and this decade will mark their ascendance as closer to sports agents, navigating complex, high-stakes hiring on behalf of companies.”
John Kim, CEO and co-founder of Paraform
“Most recruiting platforms today use AI to replace recruiters, but Paraform uses it to empower us. That’s what makes the difference. Paraform streamlines the busywork so we can focus on what actually drives results — building relationships and closing critical hires. Instead of getting in the way, its AI helps us do our job better.”
Jason Rumney, founder and CEO of Intelletec Group and a top recruiter on Paraform
“Speed and talent are everything in today’s world. Paraform places 10x talent much faster by empowering a marketplace of elite recruiters with modern tools and AI that enhances, not replaces, their judgment. With every search, the Paraform network compounds in intelligence – improving candidate matching, interview efficiency, and recruiter-role fit.”
Peter Deng, General Partner at Felicis
