AI Agents Just Raised $40M to Fix Hiring—Here's How

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-15

London-based startup Jack & Jill just raised $40 million to put an AI agent on each side of the hiring table. And honestly, it's about time someone tried this. ### What Jack & Jill Actually Does Jack & Jill runs two AI agents: Jack for job seekers, Jill for employers. Jack has voice conversations with candidates—more like career coaching than a chatbot. People have logged 12,000 hours talking to Jack, with one user calling 144 times. That's not a typo. Jill works for employers. She reads job descriptions, researches the company, and asks what success looks like. Then she sources candidates from Jack's network—no open applicant pool. When both agents agree it's a match, they introduce the two directly. No application required. ### The Funding Breakdown The $40 million Series A was led by Air Street Capital, with Madrona and Antler joining. Existing backers like Creandum, Ada Ventures, and Entrepreneurs First also participated. This brings total funding to $60 million, following a $20 million seed round in October 2025. > "The next leap in hiring will not come from better searches over the same resumes or more automated outreach. It will come from putting an agent on both sides of the table and making the introduction only when both sides would take the call," said Nathan Benaich, General Partner at Air Street Capital. ### Why This Matters for US Startups Jack & Jill is seeing faster traction in the US than in London. They've completed nearly four times as many interviews in San Francisco and New York. Revenue has grown 40-fold since the seed round. Their network has grown tenfold to 350,000 professionals, and Jill has worked with 5,000 businesses including Ramp, Attio, Multiverse, and Corgi. ### The Bigger Picture AI is displacing jobs and flooding the market with automated applications. Candidates struggle to be seen; employers can't tell who's serious. More filters won't fix that. As Mehan, co-founder and CTO, puts it: "It requires a fundamentally different solution: a marketplace brokered by agents that understand what both sides want." The company employs 25 people across London and San Francisco. 15 of them are former founders. The new capital will fund US expansion. ### What's Next Wilson, co-founder and CEO, predicts: "By 2030, a billion people will have an AI agent searching every opportunity on their behalf. Every company will have one helping it hire. Connecting those agents will make the job market run like clockwork." For US startups and job seekers, this signals a shift. The future of hiring might not be about more applications—it's about smarter connections.