Jooba, an Armenian-founded startup based in Los Angeles, has raised a $4 million seed round to build an AI-native recruiting firm for fast-growing companies. The round includes a16z speedrun, the early-stage program of Andreessen Horowitz, along with Scribble Ventures, Genius Ventures, and angel investors including ServiceTitan co-founder and CEO Ara Mahdessian.
Jooba pairs human recruiters with custom-built AI agents and works as an embedded hiring partner for startups. It has already helped more than 100 companies hire across different roles and functions, and its customers hire 50 percent faster and pay 90 percent less in recruiting fees than they would with a traditional agency. Founder and CEO Mark Benliyan announced the round on Tuesday, October 20, as Jooba opened to all companies.
Jooba took part in a16z speedrun’s fifth cohort and has a team of 5 in Los Angeles. It works with some of the fastest-growing startups in the city, among them Altruist and Invoca, as well as Guard Owl, the Armenian-founded security startup that raised a $3 million seed round in February. Following the launch, Jooba is rapidly expanding its customer base.
Agencies Charge Startups More Than $30,000 per Hire
Fast-growing companies that need to hire usually turn to recruiting agencies or self-serve AI software. Agencies charge placement fees of more than $30,000 per hire and move slowly, with incentives that rarely line up with their clients’. Self-serve AI tools push the operational work back onto the company.
“Traditional recruiting agencies are using AI to do less work while still charging startups $30,000 to $50,000 a hire,” said Troy Kirwin, a partner at a16z speedrun. “As an AI-native firm, Jooba is fixing that misalignment by building a structurally better business model that serves the needs of fast-growing companies much better.”
Jooba Builds a Custom AI Agent for Every Open Role
Each search starts with a meeting between the customer and one of Jooba’s talent engineers. Jooba then builds an AI agent calibrated to the role’s technical and cultural requirements, and the agent searches continuously through millions of potential candidates.
Talent engineers review and approve the pipeline before any message goes out. Outreach is sent under the founder’s or hiring manager’s own name, and candidates are routed into a dedicated Slack channel for review and interview scheduling. Customers pay a flat subscription and can scale their hiring up or down.
“Founders don’t have months to wait for an agency to slowly build a pipeline, which is why we optimized Jooba for sheer speed to value,” Benliyan said. “Within 22 hours of our onboarding call, our customers are talking to their first highly qualified candidate. By letting our AI agents do the heavy lifting of sourcing, we are cutting the total time to hire by 50 percent, allowing lean teams to stay focused on building their product.”
“We’ve tried nearly every other recruiting platform and agency out there, and can confidently say Jooba has been by far the best recruiting experience we’ve ever had,” said Keyan Kazemian, co-founder and CEO of 222.
Mark Benliyan: From Glendale to NASA JPL, Netflix, and Figma
Benliyan was born and raised in Glendale, where he attended Clark Magnet High School. He earned his computer science degree from UCLA in 2 years and graduated at 19.
He built software at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Netflix, Tinder, and Figma, then left Figma to shadow a major recruiting agency before founding Jooba on his own. He also built the fastest-growing LinkedIn account in recruiting, with an audience of more than 100,000.
“The right person for a role could be anywhere in the world, and they may never know that opportunity exists,” Benliyan said. “We built Jooba around the belief that hiring should be about finding that person. The right connection can change the trajectory of a company and someone’s life. We want to make more of those connections happen.”
Benliyan Offers to Help Armenians Who Want to Build
“I’ve been so inspired by the Armenian founders and builders who came before me,” Benliyan said. “We have some truly legendary people in our community who showed us what’s possible. Jooba is a small step in comparison, but I hope it helps inspire the next wave of Armenians to start companies, build things, and take big swings in tech. The more of us who go for it, the more doors open for everyone, and I’m always happy to help anyone who’s thinking about building.”
