[Edaily Marketin Reporter YunJi Kim ] Recruitment services in Europe that use artificial intelligence (AI) to directly connect job seekers with companies are emerging as a new investment opportunity. As the proliferation of generative AI has led to a significant increase in the number of job applications, placing a greater burden on companies to screen candidates, global venture capital (VC) funds are flocking to services that aim to streamline the recruitment process itself.

According to industry sources on the 20th, Jack & Jill, a London-based AI recruitment startup, recently secured a $40 million (approximately 55.3 billion won) Series A investment from firms including AirStreet Capital. Following a previous $20 million seed round, this additional funding brings the company’s total funding raised to $60 million (approximately 83 billion won).

Jack & Jill operates a recruitment matching service that pairs both job seekers and companies with AI agents to find suitable matches for each other. “Jack,” the AI agent for job seekers, assesses their work experience, desired job roles, and future career goals, while “Jill,” the AI agent for companies, identifies the qualifications companies seek in candidates. If both AI agents determine there is a good match, they directly connect the candidate and the company, allowing them to skip the separate job application process.

The emergence of this service stems from changes in the hiring landscape following the widespread adoption of generative AI. While the number of applications has surged as job seekers can easily use AI to create company-specific resumes and cover letters, companies now face the growing burden of sifting through a flood of applicants to identify suitable candidates. In fact, according to Indeed, the number of applicants per job posting doubled between 2022 and 2025, while the number of hiring managers decreased by 56%.

Investors are taking note of the fact that these startups can reduce inefficiencies in the existing hiring market. While existing recruitment software has been limited to automating certain tasks, such as resume management and document screening, the AI recruitment services that have recently emerged handle the entire process—from candidate sourcing to connecting candidates with companies. The fact that these services go beyond simply speeding up resume creation and screening to actually reducing the number of job searches and applications—thereby saving both companies and job seekers time and money—is cited as a key factor attracting investment.

In fact, startups in Europe that are leading the way with this approach are raising funds one after another. In addition to Jack & Jill, Dex, a London-based AI recruitment startup, secured $5.3 million (approximately 7.3 billion won) in seed funding last April in a round led by Notion Capital. Dex operates a service that targets AI researchers, software developers, machine learning engineers, and quant engineers; it identifies job seekers’ career histories, willingness to change jobs, and desired conditions, then finds and directly connects them with suitable companies.

In addition, Sweden-based PikaJobs secured $4 million (approximately 5.5 billion won) in pre-seed funding last June. PikaJobs operates a service that uses AI video interviews instead of resumes to create job seekers’ profiles, allowing companies to directly find the talent they need based on this information. Rather than having job seekers submit a separate application every time a job posting is published, they maintain their existing profile, and companies reach out to suitable candidates first.

In the global capital markets, as AI expands its role from a tool that assists with recruitment to an agent that connects job seekers and companies on their behalf, changes are expected to emerge in existing online recruitment platforms such as LinkedIn and Indeed. AirStreet Capital, an investor in Jack & Jill, told a foreign media outlet, “Future innovations in recruitment will not be limited to more efficiently searching existing resumes or automating the contact process,” adding, “It will evolve into a system where AI agents are deployed on both the job seeker and company sides to find and connect suitable matches.”