Fika Jobs: $4 Million for Its AI Recruitment Platform

Fika Jobs: $4 Million for Its AI Recruitment Platform

The recruitment process has long been criticized for its inefficiency and opacity. Candidates spend hours crafting applications and submitting cover letters, only to vanish into what often seems like a black box. Generative AI has only exacerbated the situation, with employers increasingly relying on AI-powered filtering systems to sift through an overwhelming number of applications.

The Stockholm-based startup, Fika Jobs, believes there is a better solution. The company is developing a video-based recruitment platform that combines AI interview agents with short video profiles, creating something akin to a cross between LinkedIn and TikTok. Instead of relying solely on resumes, candidates conduct AI-powered interviews designed to showcase their personality and communication skills.

Fika Jobs announced on Tuesday a pre-seed funding round of $4 million, which will be used to continue developing the platform, expand the team, and prepare for a broader launch later this year.

For job seekers, the process begins by connecting a LinkedIn profile. Fika's AI reviews the candidate's background and generates personalized interview questions. Candidates then participate in a video interview lasting about 10 minutes with the AI agent, currently powered by Google's Gemini models.

After the interview, Fika automatically transforms the responses into short video clips and organizes them into a profile. Instead of applying to each new job, candidates maintain an active profile that employers can discover and revisit as new opportunities arise.

The idea was born from co-founders and brothers Jakob Dubois (CEO) and Alexander Dubois (CTO) while they were building their previous startup.

“When we were building [the social app] Gaff, we spent a lot of time recruiting and almost overlooked a candidate because his resume didn’t really stand out,” Jakob Dubois told TechCrunch. “We ended up talking to him anyway, and within minutes, his determination, ambition, and energy became evident. He was exactly the type of person we wanted to hire.”

This experience convinced the founders that some traits employers value most are difficult to capture on paper.

Unlike most competitors (Alex, Maki, and Mercor, among others) that focus on helping employers source, filter, and match candidates more efficiently with AI, Fika is building a platform where candidates maintain video profiles and employers browse a pool of individuals who have already been interviewed and assessed by the AI.

If successful, Fika Jobs could help employers evaluate communication skills and cultural fit early in the recruitment process, complementing traditional resume and application reviews. This approach could be particularly valuable for early-career professionals and candidates from non-traditional backgrounds, whose potential may not always be apparent from a resume alone.

Of course, video profiles introduce real risks of bias that must also be acknowledged. When employers can see a candidate's race, age, gender, physical appearance, and accent before assessing their qualifications, it opens the door to discrimination that, despite all its flaws, a resume at least partially obscures. There’s a reason some companies have turned to blind resume screening.

The platform plans to open early access to candidates this week, with a broader public launch expected this fall. The company will initially focus on Sweden before expanding internationally. Fika currently has a small team but expects to reach around 10 employees by the end of the year.

More than 100 companies are on the waiting list, the founders claim, although they declined to disclose which ones. Additionally, they noted that over 50 companies have tested the platform, including Plenty Labs, SICS.ai, Kognity, and Rebtel.

The platform is free for job seekers. Employers pay nothing upfront, but Fika takes 10% of a candidate's first-year salary upon a successful hire. (The company notes that this is lower than the placement fees of 20% to 30% often charged by traditional recruiters and headhunters.)

The round was led by Luminar Ventures, with participation from Alliance VC and co-founders of King, Sebastian Knutsson and Riccardo Zacconi, known for creating the successful mobile game Candy Crush.