Led by Bloomberg Beta, funding will accelerate development of human-powered talent recommendation platform

Twill, a next-generation talent platform that connects companies with vetted tech professionals through peer recommendations, announced it has raised $1.4M in pre-seed funding led by Bloomberg Beta. Additional investors include Vitalize VC, Correlation Ventures, Purpose Built Ventures, and executives from Netflix, Meta, and Snap.

“Our members average 12+ years of experience in engineering, product, and sales, bringing both extensive networks and genuine judgment to the hiring process – something AI can’t replicate.”

In a landscape where 73% of hiring professionals cite a lack of qualified applicants as their biggest challenge and only 10-15% of LinkedIn applicants meet role requirements, Twill is outpacing technical recruiting by leveraging the power of professional networks and domain expertise. Unlike traditional recruiting platforms that rely on generalist recruiters, Twill has built an invite-only community of experienced tech professionals who leverage their networks to recommend qualified candidates for open roles. This approach ensures hiring managers receive pre-vetted, tenured candidates personally vouched for by industry experts.

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“The traditional recruiting model is fundamentally broken,” said Michelle Volberg, founder and CEO of Twill. “Hiring managers have always struggled with the flood of unqualified applications, but AI has dramatically worsened this problem. Now, candidates can use ChatGPT to generate perfect-looking resumes, leading to an overwhelming volume of seemingly qualified candidates who, in reality, don’t match their listed credentials. AI will only make the recruiting market harder.”

The platform stands out by offering significant financial incentives to its expert community, with members earning up to 50% of contingent search fees – ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 per successful placement. This innovative model ensures high-quality referrals while fairly compensating industry professionals for leveraging their networks and expertise. With over 10,000 professional members, Twill accelerates time-to-hire by leveraging warm leads, bringing the most qualified, vetted applicants to the forefront, and placing them into positions, typically in 30 days or less.

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“As the number of customized outbound messages increases, the most qualified candidates are inundated and often unresponsive. The best candidates that ignore messages on LinkedIn from recruiters are hanging out with Twill members after work. We’re solving this by building a curated community of industry leaders who actually know and can vouch for the talent they’re referring,” Volberg explains. “Our members average 12+ years of experience in engineering, product, and sales, bringing both extensive networks and genuine judgment to the hiring process – something AI can’t replicate.”

Its rigorous vetting process for community members and candidate referrals sets Twill apart. While traditional platforms automatically route all applications to hiring managers, Twill implements a two-layer screening process. First, candidates must be recommended by verified community members. Then, Twill’s team conducts additional screening to ensure alignment with the role requirements before presenting candidates to hiring managers.

“As we all get inundated by more and more communication, trusted recommendations from people we know can cut through. Twill brings this to recruiting in a powerful way,” said Roy Bahat, Head of Bloomberg Beta.

With this funding, Twill plans to expand its community of expert members, enhance its platform capabilities, and grow its team to serve more companies seeking high-quality talent.