In a Sea of AI Tools, Paraform Bets on People with $20M Series A from Felicis

Paraform helps companies move fast on high-stakes hires by equipping elite recruiters with AI to help them scale, not AI that replaces them

Paraform, the hiring marketplace built for elite recruiters, today 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 raise follows revenue growth of 40x since Paraform’s 2024 seed round and brings the company’s total funding to $25 million.

Paraform plans to use the capital to scale its platform to meet surging demand from startups and enterprises alike, deepen product development, and grow its community of recruiters globally. Large enterprises like Palantir, as well as fast growing companies including Cursor, Windsurf, Decagon, and Hightouch use Paraform to match with expert recruiters and fill their hardest-to-find roles.

While generative AI has flooded the recruiting space with tools for parsing resumes, automating outreach, and even conducting interviews, these tools often miss what actually matters. What most businesses ultimately care about isn’t automation, but the quality of the candidates they hire. This is measured not by AI, but by people – specifically recruiters who act as sellers, screeners, and translators of culture and fit.

AI can’t evaluate soft skills, predict team dynamics, or assess whether a candidate will meaningfully contribute to long-term success. For early and growth-stage companies hiring for critical roles, the difference between a good hire and a bad one can shape the entire future of the business. In these moments, recruiters are not a cost center, but a competitive advantage.

“The macroenvironment and rapid evolution of AI are causing massive dislocations in how tech companies operate—and how they hire,” said John Kim, CEO and co-founder of Paraform. “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.”

Companies rely on Paraform to fill their most critical roles, like forward-deployed engineers with security clearances or founding sales hires. 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, using tools that surface better-aligned candidates and speed up hiring decisions.

The best recruiters have deep networks and great judgment, and they are uniquely able to navigate high-stakes negotiations and decisions. Paraform gives them a platform that reflects and rewards their value.

“Most recruiting platforms today use AI to replace recruiters, but Paraform uses it to empower us,” said Jason Rumney, founder and CEO of Intelletec Group and a top recruiter on Paraform. “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.”

With Paraform, recruiters can focus on what they do best: building relationships, advocating for talent, and closing hires. Paraform also equips recruiters with tools that enhance their effectiveness, like AI-powered candidate relationship management, call transcription, sourcing tools, and workflow automations that save time without sacrificing quality. And because they’re free to work across companies and roles, recruiters on Paraform earn 3–5x more than they would in traditional agency or in-house roles.

“Speed and talent are everything in today’s world,” said Peter Deng, General Partner at Felicis. “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.”

For more information about Paraform, or to try a demo, visit our website.

About Paraform

Paraform is the hiring marketplace for elite recruiters helping companies fill their most critical roles faster. By combining a high-performance network of independent recruiters and search firms with modern AI tools, Paraform gives companies a faster, more reliable way to hire top talent and gives recruiters the tools and flexibility to thrive. Startups and enterprises alike use Paraform to solve high-stakes hiring with speed, trust, and quality. For more information, visit paraform.com.

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For early and growth-stage companies hiring for critical roles, the difference between a good hire and a bad one can shape the entire future of the business. In these moments, recruiters are not a cost center, but a competitive advantage.