According to some recent statistics, employers are flooded with job applications. In the UK alone, employers running graduate training schemes received an average of 140 applications for each job in 2024, a 59 per cent increase compared to 2023. According to To the Organization of Student Employers. And despite some Panic Among the few recruiters, many companies are turning to AI platforms to help, especially given the Gen Z generation. surpass Millennial population in numbers.
No doubt this was a factor in the news Maki — which has a conversational, skills assessment-based AI agent for job interviews and candidate filtering — has now raised $28.6 million in Series A funding led by UK. Blossom Capital. DST Global and existing investors First, GFC and Peaks Capital were also participating. It previously raised €11 million in a funding round. The money will be used to accelerate the product roadmap, expand into the US and expand the team.
Founded in 2022 by Maxime Legardez, Paul-Louis Caylar and Benjamin Chino, Maki’s platform interviews candidates via voice, video or text. Having secured hiring contracts in 50+ markets with companies such as H&M, BNP Paribas, PwC, Deloitte, FIFA, Abercrombie and Capgemini, the company claims to have experienced over 300% growth in 2024. It also claims its platform can streamline recruiting, create a better experience for candidates and reduce employee turnover.
Maki’s AI-based agents communicate with potential candidates in natural language, and, the company says, can automate the process by 80%, with a 3x reduction in time to hire.
In an interview with TechCrunch, Maki’s CEO, Maxime Lagardez, said: “We use AI to create agents that our customers can customize to their needs, and basically to mimic the work done by humans in recruiting agents. Our agents can source, screen, schedule and interview candidates.”
He said the agent created for clothing giant H&M is called Maria. He can call candidates on the phone or be a visual avatar on a video call: “We have avatars embedded with Synthesia, so it’s a very visual experience. It can talk to candidates 24/7 in multiple languages and have 5-, 10- or 15-minute conversations with candidates to assess hundreds of skills,” said Lagardez.
He added that AI is able to assess a candidate for customer empathy, collaboration or resilience, among other things.
However, if this seems impersonal, it is far from it, especially given the number of candidates to communicate with, said Legardez: “If a candidate is rejected, they receive personal feedback, learning new things to help them improve. with some tips for Their opportunities next time, thus making them good ambassadors of the brand as well.” He said: “98% of candidates for BNP Paribas now say this is the best recruitment process of their life, and it increases their desire to join BNP Paribas.”
Additionally, despite this being the so-called era of DEI’s death, Lagardez said that Maki shows far less bias than humans: “We’ve been audited by the state of New York, and it’s been proven that our AI creates less bias than that. Humans and the more data we have across ethnicity, gender and age, the better we can calibrate and pre-train them.” Who knows, maybe AI recruitment will lead to a more diverse workforce in the future?
Maki’s competitors include companies like SHL, EON, Pymetrics and Saville. Recruit CRM, BrainTrust, Recruitee, Manatal and many others.
However, Lagardez says that Maki is underselling traditional HR software because “work through our agents, automating the work of humans.”
Lagardez previously built Everoad, a digital freight-forwarder, which was acquired by Sander.
In a statement, Ophelia Brown, partner at Blossom Capital, said: “We believe Maki’s agents have the potential to enable large organizations to reach the next level of efficiency and decision-making, redefining how HR drives business success. .”
Maki’s fundraising is definitely on trend. Today, LinkedIn released a new AI product, Jobs Match. Urgent advice Regarding whether a particular job opening is a good time to apply.
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