Six months after launching, London-based AI recruitment startup Jack & Jill has raised $20 million in seed funding to reinvent how people find jobs and companies hire talent.
The round was led by Creandum, the European venture firm behind Spotify and Klarna, with participation from Dig Ventures, Entrepreneur First, Ada Ventures, Firedrop, Repeat.vc, Episode1, Playfair, and more than 75 angel investors — including former F1 world champion Nico Rosberg and backers from Lovable, Anthropic, and ElevenLabs.
“Jack & Jill is one of the most exciting businesses leveraging agentic AI that we’ve seen,” said Peter Specht, General Partner at Creandum. “The significant traction they’ve achieved so early proves the market demand. Matthew, Saaras, and the team are leading a revolution in this industry, and we can’t wait to see their US expansion.”
The funding will fuel product development, AI infrastructure, and global expansion, with a focus on entering the US market — starting in San Francisco’s Bay Area — while deepening operations in London and across Europe.
Founded in early 2025 by Matthew Wilson (CEO) and Saaras Mehan (CTO), Jack & Jill was born out of the founders’ frustration with the inefficiency and bias of traditional recruitment.
“Imagine a world where every person is in their perfect job and every company has the right people,” said Wilson. “We’re a long way from that today. Our mission is to fix recruitment so that everyone gets world-class support — whether hiring or finding a job.”
Instead of human recruiters, Jack & Jill deploys AI agents — “Jack” and “Jill” — who autonomously talk to people to understand their needs, preferences, and skills, then make personalised matches at scale.
“Jack” acts as a digital career coach, holding voice conversations with professionals to learn about their ambitions, experience, and skills. He then surfaces relevant opportunities that genuinely align with their goals.
“Jill”, on the other hand, works with employers. She speaks with hiring managers and talent teams to define what they’re looking for, then searches Jack’s network to identify ideal candidates. Jill’s advantage is scale — she can screen thousands of conversations per day, operate faster than human recruiters, and cut costs by up to 50%.
“Agency recruiters are constrained by their capacity, while job boards flood companies with unsuitable candidates,” said Mehan. “We’re not automating a broken system — we’re reimagining recruitment from first principles.”
In just six months, Jack & Jill has integrated into hundreds of high-growth London companies, matching from a network of 49,000 vetted professionals. Customers report faster time-to-hire, higher-quality candidates, and major cost savings compared to traditional recruitment.
The startup’s growth reflects a broader industry shift toward AI-first hiring platforms, as businesses look to reduce inefficiencies and improve diversity and candidate experience.
Unlike traditional HR tech platforms that rely on filters or static algorithms, Jack & Jill’s model uses “agentic AI” — autonomous systems capable of making context-aware decisions through conversation. This allows the digital recruiters to simulate the nuance of human interaction while scaling to thousands of candidates simultaneously.
With the new funding, Jack & Jill plans to double its London team, invest in AI compliance and safety, and expand its global network of employer integrations.
“We’re building the world’s most transparent, efficient, and human AI recruitment system,” Wilson added. “Grateful to have investors who share our vision to make finding the right job — or the right person — as easy as having a conversation.”
