Launching and Funding the Future of Agency Recruitment Tech: A Recruiter’s Roadmap

The recruitment industry is at an inflection point. Agency recruiters have more power than ever to launch the next generation of recruiting tools with the power to use AI for coding – and because of what we do, we can even fund them. I wanted to put this together because there are now more ever there are more tools for recruiters hitting the market. So based on what I have seen as host of The Elite Recruiter Podcast (thank you for over 170K Downloads last year), being an actual recruiter for now just shy of 20 years, now getting hit up by VC research firms asking about tools, and having over 6000 recruiters show up to recruiting events over the last 12 months. (Next Events are the AI Recruiter Summit and Finish The Year Strong)

I wanted to lay out a out a game plan: how to go to market with a new recruitment tech product tailored for agencies, why recruiters themselves should take the driver’s seat in funding the tools they truly need, and who’s already investing in this space.

Oh, and if you need some help recruiting talent for your team. My partner Alyssa Thomasjust got enough room for a few more clients.

Now let’s dive in.

Go-to-Market Game Plan: Launching Recruitment Tech

Bringing a new recruiting tool to market isn’t just about writing code – it’s about winning the hearts and minds of the recruiting community. Here’s how a savvy go-to-market (GTM) strategy can make your launch successful:

Engage Key Influencers: Get the attention of well-connected voices in the recruiting space. Offer free passes for your product, or beta access to respected recruiters who run popular blogs, LinkedIn groups, or podcasts. Consider paid promotions or co-creating content with these influencers to tap into their audience. Their endorsement provides instant credibility. But also understand that these people are getting hit up by lots of companies trying to go to market so don't just ask to be on the blog or on a podcast interview. They also want to be true to their communities and if its not sponsored content, they might want not want to do because it takes years of work to build the community that you are trying to tap into.

Founders’ Program for Early Adopters: Create an exclusive “Founders Program” for your first ~100 paying customers. Offer heavy discounts, concierge onboarding, and white-glove support to these pioneers. In return, you’ll gain loyal advocates who feel like partners in your journey. Their success stories will become case studies and testimonials that attract others. Atlas - the Recruitment Platform did this and their early customers because their biggest cheerleaders. HireSweethas also been celebrating every single new member. This is your chance to really gain traction.

Leverage Social Proof: Actively encourage early adopters to share their wins publicly. When a recruiting team fills roles faster or earns more placements thanks to your tool, ask them to post about it on LinkedIn or speak at an industry meetup. That organic buzz builds FOMO and trust – recruiters love hearing success stories from peers.

Invest in Paid Ads & Podcasts: The recruitment community lives on LinkedIn and in niche podcasts. Sponsor industry podcast shows and run targeted LinkedIn or Instagram ads to get on recruiters’ radar; just remember that podcast advertising works via repetition – listeners need to hear your message multiple times before it sticks. With consistent exposure, you’ll build brand recall and credibility among your audience.

Affiliate & Referral Programs: Turn your happy users into your de-facto sales team. Set up referral incentives (e.g. a free month or cash bonus for every new customer they refer) and partner with industry affiliates. Agency recruiters are a tight network – a generous referral program can spark a word-of-mouth wildfire. There are plenty of programs out there like Rewardful that can make it easier than manually tracking everything.

Treat GTM as Mission-Critical: Launching a product is launching a company. Be prepared to invest seriously in marketing, community engagement, and support. It’s not “build it and they will come” – it’s “build it, promote it, refine it, and keep promoting it.” In recruitment tech, the best product won’t win if nobody knows about it. Budget time and money for demos, ads, events, and content as part of your product development plan.

Go Deep on LinkedIn Thought Leadership: The best founders meet their customers on LinkedIn every day. Share recruiting tips, lessons learned building your tool, industry observations – anything valuable to agency recruiters. Consistency is key. Consider the playbook of Adam Robinson, who devoted ~25 hours a week to posting content and engaging on LinkedIn, turning the platform into an “8-figure revenue engine” for his SaaS business. In our space, being the expert voice on recruiting technology will earn trust and inbound leads.

Recruit Strategic Advisors: Don’t just add big names to your pitch deck—bring in advisors who deeply understand recruiting and SaaS growth. Seek experienced agency leaders, tech execs who've scaled recruitment software, and influencers who can amplify your brand. Engage them regularly, compensate with equity or incentives, and leverage their networks. Advisors aren’t figureheads; they’re strategic partners who can accelerate your credibility, growth, and market penetration. There are a lot of people out there including myself Benjamin Mena. Here are some examples. Trainers like Clark Willcox, Tricia Tamkin, (She/Her), Brianna Rooney, Tom Erb, Keely Flood, and David Stephen Patterson. Firm owners like Aaron Opalewski who could be one of the biggest players in the recruiting space over the next decade, Dante Nino who has dialed in how to get $200K billers over over $500K, Ashley Woods who has built an incredible remote team, or Sharon Bondurant 🔎 The Finders who is building a team of big billers. Or go after the big billers or people out of Pinnacle like Rich Rosen (Podcast Episode), or Allan Fisher, Katherine Jerald 🎙 (Podcast episode), or Gail Audibert(Podcast Episode) and Brent Orsuga (Podcast Episode)

Meet Recruiters Where They Are:Finally, don’t just live behind a screen – join the community in person. Attend staffing & recruiting conferences, sponsor local recruiter meetups, and host webinars or roundtables. Whether it’s chatting in a LinkedIn group or grabbing coffee at an industry event, these personal interactions show you’re committed to the community. Trust is built face-to-face (or Zoom-to-Zoom), not just via automated email campaigns.

Perfect examples I saw recently were recruitment tech firms chatting with customers and potential customers at the The Pinnacle Society and their president Gail Audibert (Podcast interview with her), and I am sure the same thing will happen at NAPS - National Association of Personnel Services (I just got done interviewing their board member Tom Erb on the podcast.) I have also seen sponsors for my Summits like Crelate, Ascen, and Juicbox) interacting with attendees live in the chat at the virtual summits.

By executing on these fronts, you’re not just launching a tool – you’re cultivating a user community from day one. A strong go-to-market plan ensures that when your product goes live, it already has champions ready to sing its praises.

One last thing to remember - Recruiters are very cash-conscious. While you see a way to tap into a $25K fee from a placement. They are getting hit up multiple times a day with some tool that will help them make more placements and have been disappointed many times by tools promising the world and then they are stuck into a subscription that they want to get out of.

Recruiters in the Driver’s Seat: Building a Recruiter-Led Fund

Here’s a crazy idea: Recruiters should take control of our own future. Rather than relying on Silicon Valley venture capitalists to guess what tools our industry needs, why not pool our resources build a fund and/or build it ourselves?

As one might ask, “Instead of waiting for Silicon Valley to guess what we need next, what if we built it ourselves?”

Imagine a recruiter-led investment fund or syndicate that backs new recruitment tech ideas coming from people on the front lines (like you!).

We know the pain points first-hand – clunky ATS interfaces, time-wasting admin work, sourcing tools that don’t quite fit the agency model – and we know what solutions would actually make a difference in our day-to-day productivity.

Who better to fund the next generation of recruiting tech than the recruiters who will use it?

Why not take control of our destiny.

Too often, flashy HR tech startups pitch “AI-driven psychometric metaverse hiring!” – solutions looking for a problem – and then fizzle out because they don’t really move the needle on placements or revenue.

We don’t need gimmicks; we need practical tools that help us source candidates faster, automate busywork, and close more deals.

If recruiters collectively invested in what we want (and shared in the upside), the focus would be on ROI and real-world impact, not just shiny features for a press release.

Picture this: a group of tenured agency recruiters and staffing firm owners form an angel syndicate.

They scout startups that solve the unsexy, real problems (think better candidate matching, MPC automation, automated interview scheduling, CRM integrations that actually work).

They not only provide seed funding, but also trial the products in their firms, give iterative feedback, and help those startups land their first clients. It’s a win-win: founders get industry expertise and connections, and recruiters get a stake in tools tailor-made for them.

We don’t have to sit back and hope “someone in tech” builds the tool of your dreams. We can be part of it. The next time you catch yourself saying “I wish there was a platform that could _____,” consider finding like-minded folks and making it happen – either by collaborating with a startup or funding it yourself. In the long run, a recruiter-led fund means the tools that shape our industry’s future will align with what we actually need to thrive.

Should we start a fund?

Who’s Backing Recruitment Tech: Key Investors and Trends

It’s not just recruiters who see the opportunity in agency-focused tech – investors are catching on too. Over the past couple of years, a number of early-stage investors (from venture capital firms to individual angels) have put money into new recruiting platforms built for agencies.

Let’s take a look at who is funding this space and what trends are emerging:

Investors are betting big on AI-driven recruitment tech. For example, Seattle-based ConverzAI – which provides AI “virtual recruiter” agents – recently secured a $16 million Series A led by Menlo Ventures. Top-tier VCs like Menlo, joined by firms like Left Lane Capital, Foundation Capital, and Afore Capital, are investing on the thesis that automating recruiters’ workflows with AI can dramatically boost hiring efficiency. ConverzAI’s platform automates sourcing, screening, and outreach, and its backers (like Menlo’s Venky G.) believe it can “reshape the recruitment industry” with this approach. It’s a clear signal that mainstream investors see AI-powered workflow automation in recruiting as a high-growth opportunity.

Early-stage specialist funds and angels are active as well. OptimHire, an AI-driven hiring platform, raised a $5M seed round led by Mucker Capital (helmed by Omar Hamoui, known for early-stage bets), with participation from several micro-VCs. Notably, one investor in that round was Pitbull Ventures, a pre-seed fund focused on AI-enabled vertical SaaS (industry-specific software). This is a trend: niche VC firms are zeroing in on vertical SaaS for staffing agencies, betting that tools tailored to the recruiting industry can yield solid returns. Other participants included VSC Venturesand international accelerator SparkLabs – again, indicating broad interest in recruitment tech spanning from marketing-focused funds to global incubators.

We’re also seeing regional and incubator support for recruiter-focused startups. In Canada, for instance, one of my personal favorites Talin (which automates staffing agency workflows) secured a pre-seed round backed by a mix of public and private funds: Cascade Seed Fund, DMZ Ventures, Team Ignite Ventures, and the Ontario Centre of Innovation. The presence of an accelerator’s venture arm (DMZ) and a regional innovation fund shows that even outside Silicon Valley, there’s recognition of the value in recruitment tech. And of course, programs like Y Combinator have gotten involved – YC’s Summer 2022 batch included another one of my favorites Juicebox (PeopleGPT), an AI-powered people search platform for recruiters. Being in YC often means access to that network of angel investors and SaaS-focused micro-funds eager to back “future of work” startups.

Common threads among these investors? Many share an “future of work” or “productivity” thesis, meaning they look for tech that makes professional workflows (like recruiting) more efficient through AI and automation. Others explicitly focus on vertical markets – they believe a specialized tool for one industry can often beat out generic platforms. And nearly all of them emphasize revenue and ROI: they’re investing in tools that help recruiters make more placements (and money), not just experimental tech. It’s telling that ConverzAI, for example, touts metrics like 30% faster placements and big revenue boosts for agencies using its AI recruiters, – precisely the kind of tangible improvement investors want to see.

For founders, knowing this landscape is valuable. If you’re building a new recruiting CRM, AI sourcing tool, or anything in between, there are emerging VC firms, syndicates, and angels actively looking to fund the next Loxo or Recruiterflow, or EQ app. Many of them will bring not just capital but also mentorship and introductions (perhaps to their contacts at big staffing firms or RPOs) – effectively accelerating your path to product-market fit.

The key is aligning with their themes: if your product automates a recruiter’s busywork, improves placement rates, or opens a new market (say, helps agencies scale into a new niche), you’ll tick the boxes in many investment theses.

Closing Thoughts: Join the Future-Building Movement

The golden era of recruitment isn’t behind us – it’s ahead, and we get to build it. Whether you’re a recruiter exhausted by clunky systems, a founder passionate about this space, or an investor recognizing an underserved market, now is the time to collaborate.

Recruiters: share your feedback and ideas with the builders of new tools.

On top of that now technology has gotten so good that you can even potentially build your own prodcut to solve a problem you are dealing with.

Founders: immerse yourselves in the recruiter community – be one of us, speak our language, solve our real problems. Investors: consider doubling down on recruiter-led innovation; the firms backing Loxo , ConverzAI , and others have opened the door, and there’s plenty of room for smart capital that understands this sector.

Connect with others in the industry who are excited about pushing recruiting forward. The future of agency recruitment tech will be shaped by those who get involved.

No one knows the needs of recruiters better than recruiters.

By launching the right products – and even funding them ourselves – we ensure that the next wave of recruitment technology truly empowers us to be more productive, profitable, and successful.

The tools of tomorrow are ours to create. Let’s build them together.

Need to hire? We can help! This article was written by Benjamin Mena who is a Managing Partner of Select Source Solutions which is a boutique executive recruitment firm.

If you’d like to have a conversation about employee retention, growing your team, or hiring plans for the rest of the year, please get in touch! Benjamin@selectsourcesolutions.com

If you are a recruiter join me on upcoming episodes of the Elite Recruiter Podcast on Apple or Spotify!