AI recruiting startup Emi raises $11m to help enterprises hire better frontline workers, faster

Emi, the conversational AI recruiting platform for frontline workers, has secured $11 million in Series A funding, led by Merus Capital and Khosla Ventures. David Rangel, General Partner at Merus Capital and former COO of Iterable, has joined as a Board member.

Emi empowers global enterprises to hire better frontline workers faster. Their platform automates end-to-end communication using a conversational interface with candidates. It leverages AI to optimize the process, reducing the time-to-hire, increasing candidate satisfaction, and improving recruiter productivity.

Over the past year, Emi enabled customers to fill more than 20,000 jobs. The company's focus on frontline candidates, particularly in retail, light industrial, and distribution positions, led to a 20% month-over-month growth in the number of enabled hires during 2021. Current Emi customers include industry leaders such as Walmart, Danone, Iconn (7-Eleven), Alsea (Starbucks, Burger King, Domino's Pizza, Chili's, PF Changs, Cheesecake Factory) and Cemex.

Evan Moore, General Partner, Khosla Ventures: "Emi has already had a real impact for the working population and for major companies seeking frontline workers. I'm excited to expand that impact to millions of job seekers." Evan Moore also invested in Emi's Seed Round.

The company's focus will remain on streamlining customers' hiring process, along with adding new customers that are facing the growing challenges of hiring frontline workers in today's labor market. The capital will be used to double the size of the team during the next 12 months, expanding across multiple functions, including sales, marketing, product, and engineering.

Mateo Cavasotto, Co-founder and CEO, Emi: "Our mission is to increase frontline workers' access to professional opportunities. To accomplish this, we are creating the infrastructure for frontline hiring, providing companies with tools designed specifically for the challenges of hiring these workers, who account for 2.4B people across the globe, representing +70% of the global workforce. We founded this company while working closely with frontline candidates, so we know that technology needs to meet them where they are, not the other way around. At the same time, we work with large enterprises and also know that our platform needs to fit into their growing tech stacks."

Emi's mission traces back to its origins, when co-founders Mateo (CEO) and Andy (CTO) worked as volunteers for a Microcredits NGO in Argentina, seeking to understand how poverty-stricken populations' problems could be solved leveraging technology. The company went through the Y-Combinator W19 batch and raised a Seed Round with the participation of Khosla Ventures.

David Rangel, who joins Emi Board of Directors: "We are very excited about Emi's unique approach to bringing together frontline workers and enterprise employers. Their experience with the very largest employers in Latin America gives them an edge over competitors, and their traction to date demonstrates a keen sense for what works for both candidates and enterprise recruiters and HR departments."

www.emilabs.ai