SonicJobs wins; Spirence is runner-up

More than 100 start-up companies applied for HR Tech Pitchfest earlier this summer; 33 were selected to compete, six reached the final round, and, ultimately, recruitment marketing tool SonicJobs won the $25,000 prize.

With more than 100 customers and a partnership with OfferUp in place, SonicJobs uses the tagline “Building AI agents to reinvent recruitment for companies and candidates.”

In two pitches during the Pitchfest last week, co-founder and CEO Mikhil Raja described a technology that is removing “bad friction” and adding “good friction” to deliver better hiring results while reducing hiring costs for employers with “no dev work required.”

SonicJobs focuses on improving both the candidate experience, to bring down 95% application abandonment rates, and the recruiter experience.

According to its Pitchfest application, SonicJobs’ “award-winning” AI agent helps applicants by autonomously searching and understanding the data required to complete an application within a company’s applicant tracking system.

Then it matches job seekers—from search, social and other job boards—to open positions, collecting the answers to all ATS questions, verifying the candidate’s identity, filtering and only submitting the best applications to the ATS.

Attending his second HR Tech event since launching the product, Raja said he’ll find good use for the prize money, but the recognition is the best part of winning.

Preventive mental health platform Spirence placed second, winning $5,000.

Spirence, the name of which combines “spirit” and “experience,” said co-founder Laura Kunz, is a digital solution that helps employers provide preventive mental healthcare to employees, which, unlike EAPs, they’re significantly more likely to use.

Improving wellness with such a platform helps care for workers, preventing burnout and expensive healthcare bills, she said. It’s a wellness tool unlike most others in the market.

“We were a unique category, so definitely that (set us apart),” Kunz said. “I think it’s a message that a lot of people are really open to and eager to hear right now. With everything going on in the world and in the country, I think that preventative mental health is becoming more forefront and part of the conversation.”

CoAdvantage/PrimePay sponsored the event and provided the prizes. The other Pitchfest finalists were Hallo, Match2, SCALIS and Trua.