Benjamin Anches’ path to entrepreneurship was long and unusual.
Having previously worked as an R&D engineer at FX companies Industrial Light & Magic and DreamWorks on films such as “Transformers” and “How to Train Your Dragon,” Encz left the film industry in 2012 and joined VC firm Social Capital as a resident engineer. There, he co-founded Choir, a mental health app for iOS. Several years later, Encz joined PlanGrid, a construction productivity software startup, as director of engineering, where he was tasked with leading and managing the company’s core programming projects.
At PlanGrid, most of Enz’s time was spent in recruiting, he says. It was then that he became familiar with the pain points of the processes. “The industry has gone from a sudden retreat from companies growing their headcount quickly, which has changed the dynamics of the talent market and how talent acquisition teams need to adjust,” Enz told TechCrunch. “The pain is felt at the top level, with executives citing talent as the number one topic they are uncomfortable with.”
As a cure for this “pain,” Encaz and Abhik Pramanik, an engineer whom Encaz met at PlanGrid, launched AshbyA platform that consolidates existing talent acquisition tools and relies heavily on AI to automate the more repetitive steps in the recruiting pipeline. Ashby can help create job listings, find candidates, and send calendar invites for interviews, while providing stakeholders with a dashboard with real-time recruiting metrics.
“As recruiting managers and members of the leadership team, we know how difficult it has historically been for employees outside of the recruiting team to have a positive experience with applicant tracking systems (ATS),” said Enz. “Ashby was built with all stakeholders in mind, as we believe talent is the most critical element to a company’s growth.”
One of Ashby’s AI capabilities, AI-generated filters for candidate search, lets recruiters describe in plain language what types of candidates they’re looking for in the applicant database (e.g. “candidates with Python skills we hired this year who didn’t come from referrals”) and helps Ashby write the filter logic and booleans needed for the search query.
Ashby can also insert personalized, AI-generated copy into outreach emails based on the job description and candidate resume, and automatically categorize email responses from candidates as “interested” or “not interested.” In addition, the platform can summarize interview feedback collected during the hiring process into debriefs for recruiters, including highlights that quote individual interview feedback.
What if the AI makes mistakes, as AI often does? Encz pointed out that the output can be changed or adjusted — and human review is incorporated into each workflow.
“We see our opportunity in AI as being in line with our general focus on product speed and quality,” Enz said. “Our biggest differentiators are centered around the quality and access to data for the talent team, the connectivity of workflows coming from systems built on a single platform versus multiple point solutions, and the quality of our customer experience.”
Since emerging from stealth in September 2022, Ashby’s customer base has grown to more than 1,300 brands, including Quora, Ironclad, Vanta, Reddit, and Lemonade. Revenue has grown 6x; Encz says Ashby is making most of its money through base subscriptions with add-on fees for more sophisticated scheduling and analytics tools.
Investors seem to be happy with these figures. This week, Ashby closed a $30 million Series C round led by Lachy Groom, with participation from tech entrepreneur Elad Gil, F-Prime, and Y Combinator — bringing Ashby’s total raised to $70 million.
Enz described the Series C as a “solid up-round” from the Series B.
“We’ve seen very strong growth over the last two years and increasing growth rates across both startup and enterprise customers, making this an ideal time to double down on product development and go-to-market investments,” he added. “This additional funding gives us several years of runway and lots of options.”
One of those options is expansion. Ashby plans to hire about 50 people by the end of the year, joining his team of 100 based at his San Francisco headquarters.
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