SAN FRANCISCO, March 18, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ezra, a voice AI interviewing platform built for recruiting teams looking for reliable signals to assess talent, and candidates who want to be heard, announced today that it has raised a $3.2 million seed round co-led by Penny Jar Capital and LMNT Ventures, with participation from a16z Speedrun and Telegraph Hill Capital.
The funding comes as recruiting teams face a worsening hiring crisis as technology advances. Application volume has nearly tripled since 2021. Recruiters are now screening 1,000+ applications per role while qualified candidates vanish into the noise. With AI resume tools becoming more sophisticated and accessible, it's getting harder, not easier, to find real talent.
Ezra's approach is different: the platform interviews every applicant through structured voice conversations, giving recruiters comparable data at scale and ensuring candidates have a way to stand out by actually talking.
Why Voice AI, Why Now
"Application volume has exploded because AI has made it trivial to generate polished resumes and fake identities, and recruiters are missing qualified candidates in the noise," said Ophir Samson, founder and CEO of Ezra. "It's accelerating as these AI tools get better, more applications flood in, and the old playbook of resume screening becomes useless. We built Ezra so our customers can stop playing the resume lottery."
The results speak for themselves: two large/enterprise tech companies have reported saving up to 75% more time, and interviewing six times as many qualified candidates with Ezra than with a traditional hiring process.
Samson brings a rare combination to the challenge: he's a second-time exited AI voice founder with a PhD in applied mathematics who scaled teams at Uber and Aurora. He has spent years researching and pioneering platforms using voice AI, machine learning, and natural language processing to build infrastructure that goes beyond surface-level screening.
“Ophir was built to lead in the AI renaissance. For over a decade, we’ve watched Ophir master a wide range of fields, driven by his curiosity and an unmatched will to invent, build and iterate,” said Bryant Barr, Founding Partner at Penny Jar Capital.
“Ezra is a culmination of his work, combining his expertise in the science of AI and the art of relationships to reinvent hiring at scale.”
How It Works
Integrating Ezra into a hiring workflow is simple. Recruiting teams customize the platform for their roles, criteria, and culture, allowing Ezra to conduct structured voice conversations with candidates. This approach provides consistent, role-specific insights across numerous interviews before live sessions.
Ezra streamlines the process with structured scoring, cheat detection, and ATS integration, reducing manual tasks. It also allows candidates to stand out through conversation rather than just keyword optimization.
"At a moment when surface-level screening is becoming less reliable by the day, Ezra helps identify true signal for 'needle-in-the-haystack' talent,” said Jeff Miller, Founding Partner at LMNT Ventures. "Ezra's proprietary models are at the bleeding edge of Voice AI and power an interview experience that is step-functions ahead of any other solutions in the market. That, combined with Ophir's unusually sharp understanding of both recruiter and candidate needs, led to a product that feels intuitive, human, and genuinely delightful to use."
“We backed Ezra from Day 0 because we believed in Ophir's vision that hiring in a post-AI era is broken and needs to get rebuilt around real human signal vs surface level resumes,” said Jonathan Lai, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. “From our first meeting, it was clear Ophir was a special founder with both the technical IQ to build innovative voice AI, as well as the EQ to design for recruiters and candidates. It's been a pleasure to work with the team over the course of a16z Speedrun, and we couldn't be more excited about the future.”
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About Ezra
Ezra is a voice AI interviewing platform that helps recruiting teams identify qualified candidates through structured voice conversations. The platform integrates with existing ATS systems to automate initial screening while allowing candidates to stand out through conversation rather than resume optimization. Learn more at www.ezrarecruiting.com.
Evan Boyer Leaders PR evan@leaderspr.com (919) 443-5365
