Spott Raises $21M Series A to Build AI-Native Recruiting Platform

Spott, a Leuven-based AI recruiting technology startup, has raised $21 million in Series A funding to expand its AI-native applicant tracking and customer relationship management platform for recruitment agencies.

The round was led by Balderton Capital, which provided the majority of the funding. Base10 Partners, Y Combinator and Fortino Capital also participated on a pro rata basis.

Founded in 2024 by former consultants Lander Degreve, Manu Vanderveeren and Samuel Smeys, Spott is building recruitment software from the ground up around artificial intelligence rather than adding AI capabilities to an older recruitment management system.

The company says its revenue has increased more than tenfold since the beginning of 2026, while more than 80% of its new business comes from inbound demand.

From consulting to recruitment technology

Spott's origins came from the founders' experience working as consultants.

Lander Degreve, Manu Vanderveeren and Samuel Smeys observed recruitment teams spending significant amounts of time entering information manually into customer relationship management and applicant tracking systems.

In other cases, recruiters failed to update those systems, causing potentially valuable candidate and client information to become outdated or disappear.

The founders believed artificial intelligence could address the problem by converting unstructured information into structured databases while also taking over some of the administrative work involved in recruitment.

That idea eventually became Spott.

The company now focuses exclusively on recruitment agencies, serving businesses involved in executive search, contracting, permanent placement and temporary staffing.

Building an AI-native recruitment system

Spott describes its platform as an AI applicant tracking system and CRM designed specifically for recruitment agencies.

The company took an AI-first approach from the beginning.

Rather than building a traditional recruitment management system and subsequently adding AI features, Spott developed its product from scratch using a vector database.

The founders argue that this gives the company an opportunity to rethink how recruitment agencies store, organize and use information.

Recruitment generates large quantities of unstructured data, including resumes, candidate profiles, interview notes, emails, job descriptions and client communications.

Turning that information into a usable database traditionally requires recruiters to perform significant amounts of manual data entry.

Spott's technology is designed to automate parts of that process.

The company's broader thesis is that AI can handle administrative work while recruiters focus more heavily on interviews, relationships and other human interactions.

Recruitment agencies as the core market

Spott is not targeting the entire recruitment technology market.

Its platform is specifically designed for recruitment agencies operating across multiple staffing models.

That includes executive search firms, contract recruiters, permanent placement agencies and temporary staffing companies.

This specialization allows Spott to focus its product development on workflows that are common across recruitment agencies.

The company believes the opportunity exists because much of the industry's core infrastructure was developed before modern AI became widely available.

According to Spott's co-founder and COO Manu Vanderveeren, many established competitors have been operating for decades, making it more difficult to integrate AI deeply into their existing products.

Spott is positioning itself as an alternative built around AI from the start.

Competing with established recruitment software

The recruitment software market includes several established platforms.

Bullhorn has been a major player in the recruitment software industry, while Vincere and Loxo have also built substantial businesses serving recruitment agencies.

Spott's differentiation is centered on its AI-native architecture.

Instead of taking an established applicant tracking or CRM system and adding AI features, the startup says its technology was built around AI from the beginning.

The distinction reflects a broader trend across enterprise software, where newer startups are attempting to rebuild established workflows around AI agents and automation rather than simply adding AI assistants to existing applications.

Strong inbound demand

Spott's growth so far has been driven largely by inbound demand.

The company says more than 80% of its sales come from inbound sources.

Potential customers discover Spott through LinkedIn, its website and referrals.

That sales pattern is also reflected in the company's team structure.

Spott currently has 44 employees, including approximately 18 engineers and only three or four people working in sales, according to the source.

The company says its revenue has increased more than tenfold since January 2026.

The founders attribute part of this acceleration to increasing awareness of what AI can do within recruitment workflows.

As recruitment organizations experiment with AI, Spott is attempting to position itself as a purpose-built platform rather than an add-on to traditional recruiting software.

$21M Series A led by Balderton Capital

Balderton Capital led Spott's $21 million Series A investment.

The majority of the round came from Balderton, with Base10 Partners, Y Combinator and Fortino Capital participating on a pro rata basis.

Balderton partner Phil Chambers led the investment.

Chambers said the founders' firsthand exposure to recruitment operations helped them identify the problem and build a technology platform around it.

The funding provides Spott with additional resources to expand beyond its current markets and invest in the product.

International expansion

One of Spott's immediate priorities following the funding round is international expansion.

The company plans to use the new capital to enter additional markets and broaden its customer base among recruitment agencies.

It also plans to develop enterprise features for larger clients.

Enterprise recruitment organizations can have more complex workflows, larger databases and greater requirements around administration, security and integrations.

Building those capabilities could allow Spott to move further upmarket while continuing to serve smaller recruitment agencies.

AI and the changing recruitment workflow

Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used across different stages of recruitment.

Companies are experimenting with AI for candidate sourcing, interview assistance, resume analysis, hiring coordination and administrative tasks.

Spott is concentrating on the infrastructure underneath recruitment agencies rather than focusing exclusively on one isolated AI feature.

Its system is designed to organize recruitment data and automate repetitive processes.

The founders' argument is that this can allow recruiters to spend less time maintaining databases and more time on activities that directly involve candidates and clients.

A growing AI recruiting market

Spott's funding arrives during a period of increased investment in AI-powered recruitment technology.

London-based Jack & Jill, another AI recruiting startup, raised $40 million in Series A funding in September 2026 after previously raising a $20 million seed round.

Jack & Jill uses AI agents across candidate and employer workflows, illustrating how different startups are approaching the recruitment market with agent-based technology.

Spott is taking a different position by focusing specifically on recruitment agencies and the software infrastructure they use to manage candidates and clients.

The broader applicant tracking system market was valued at approximately $3.3 billion in 2024 according to the source, with projections placing it at around $4.5 billion by 2030.

AI could reshape how that market develops as recruitment companies reassess the software infrastructure they rely on.

Scaling the team and technology

The Series A funding will also allow Spott to continue investing in its engineering capabilities.

With approximately 18 engineers among its 44 employees, the company already maintains a technology-heavy organization.

The additional capital can support product development as Spott expands its platform and develops more enterprise-focused functionality.

Maintaining an AI-native architecture could also require continued investment in data infrastructure, model capabilities and workflow automation.

The next phase for Spott

Spott's $21 million Series A gives the company capital to expand internationally, develop enterprise features and continue building AI-native recruitment infrastructure.

Its growth so far has been notable for the proportion of business coming from inbound channels. More than 80% of its new business reportedly comes through inbound interest, while revenue has increased more than tenfold since the start of 2026.

Founded by Lander Degreve, Manu Vanderveeren and Samuel Smeys, Spott is betting that recruitment agencies will increasingly want software designed around AI rather than legacy systems retrofitted with AI capabilities.

The company's next phase will test whether its AI-native approach can scale across international recruitment markets while maintaining the data quality and workflows that agencies depend on.

For recruitment firms, the broader question is how much administrative work can realistically be automated without weakening the relationships and human judgment that remain central to hiring.