Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Success! Now Check Your Email

To complete Subscribe, click the confirmation link in your inbox. If it doesn’t arrive within 3 minutes, check your spam folder.

Ok, Thanks

Elly raises $8 million to launch AI hiring platform designed to capture recruitment decisions as they form

The startup says existing recruiting tools force teams to reconstruct judgments after the fact, and aims to replace manual documentation with real-time structured data

Defused News Writer profile image
by Defused News Writer
Elly raises $8 million to launch AI hiring platform designed to capture recruitment decisions as they form
Photo by Evangeline Shaw / Unsplash

Elly, an artificial intelligence-native hiring platform, has launched its product and announced $8 million in seed funding led by Sorenson Capital, with participation from Atomic and Next Wave Capital.

The company said most recruiting tools require hiring teams to reconstruct decisions from scattered notes after interviews have concluded, losing the reasoning behind choices as it forms.

Elly embeds AI across sourcing, interviewing and applicant tracking to capture hiring activity in real time, turning unstructured conversations and evolving feedback into structured, searchable data without requiring manual entry.

The platform is designed to surface next steps automatically and improve decision-making as candidate volumes grow.

Early customers reported saving up to one hour and 45 minutes per candidate on interview write-ups, between three and five hours per week through reduced note-taking and follow-ups, and between five and ten hours per week by replacing live screening calls with targeted interview reviews.

Kristen Habacht, chief executive of Elly, said recruiting teams were overwhelmed by software that was never designed to reflect how hiring actually works, and that Elly was built to understand the reasoning behind decisions as they develop rather than after the fact.

Rob Rueckert, partner at Sorenson Capital, will join Elly's board of directors following the round, and said the platform fundamentally changed how recruiting teams operate by capturing hiring judgment as it forms.

Elly said the funding will support product development, expansion of its AI capabilities, customer growth, and sales and marketing.

Sorenson Capital has previously backed Habacht, and Rueckert cited that prior experience as informing the firm's confidence in the founding team.

The recap

  • Elly launched an artificial intelligence-native hiring platform and raised $8 million
  • Sorenson Capital led the round; Atomic and Next Wave participated
  • Rob Rueckert will join Elly’s board of directors
Defused News Writer profile image
by Defused News Writer