Joonko helps companies identify high-quality candidates from underrepresented groups by surfacing 'silver medalists'—people who reached the final interview stages at other companies but were not hired. The product integrates with recruitment systems and includes candidates only with their permission. Today Joonko focuses on three groups: women, people of color and veterans, with some candidates crossing multiple groups. The company launched in 2017 and currently has around 35 employees; the firm says its New York office staff are all underrepresented. Joonko plans to expand beyond sourcing into retention efforts to help underrepresented hires feel less isolated and stay at organizations. The startup announced a $25 million Series B to further its growth and product plans. Joonko builds an AI-powered platform that connects to partner companies' applicant-tracking systems to identify and resurface prequalified underrepresented candidates as part of a shared talent pool. The product collects finalists who were not hired and makes them available to other participating firms, using AI to sort and match candidates to relevant openings. The company reports an applicant pool of over 100,000 prequalified individuals and says it can make roughly 100–120 placements per month. Clients include Adidas, PayPal, American Express, Regions Bank, Atlassian, and Intuit; the company has expanded its team to about 20 salespeople and plans to spend on marketing to win more customers. Joonko grew revenues by 40% quarter-on-quarter throughout 2020, a trend the CEO attributes in part to increased awareness around social justice issues. The Tel Aviv-based CEO Ilit Raz frames the product as a way for companies to meet DE&I goals and is focusing expansion efforts beyond Israel, particularly on the U.S. market. Joonko Diversity is an AI-powered diversity and inclusion startup that provides recruiters with an automated tool to source qualified diverse candidates. The platform syncs with an organization’s Applicant Tracking System and connects it to a US pool of over 12,000 active, qualified, diverse candidates. It is already used by companies such as Adidas, PayPal and Intuit. The company was founded in 2016 by CEO Ilit Raz and is based in Birmingham, Alabama. Joonko secured $2.4M in seed funding led by the Alabama Futures Fund and will use the proceeds to scale marketing and customer acquisition. The startup aims to enable talent acquisition teams to tap into new active candidate sources through its automated sourcing tool. Joonko provides an AI-powered software platform that plugs into existing HR and productivity systems (Atlassian Jira, Salesforce, Workday) to analyze company data and suggest real-time corrective actions to reduce workplace discrimination. The company launched a second version of its product focused on managers and team inclusion and also helps with hiring processes. Pricing tiers are disclosed: $25–$35 per job for companies, $3–$6 per employee per month for team inclusion, and $3–$9 per month for individual coaching. Joonko is a Techstars Atlanta graduate founded in 2016 and is relocating from Atlanta to San Francisco, with research and development based in Israel. The startup has six employees (three full-time, three part-time) and is running pilots with 11 companies. Today the team is focused on gender and minority inclusion and plans to expand to other protected profiles such as age and religion.

Total raised

$37M

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Series B

Latest activity

Sep 2022