Scottsdale, Arizona Paradox.ai, an ai-powered chatbot which provides talent acquisition automation solutions to enterprise clients, has announced a successful fundraising round. The series-b round, led by Brighton Park Capital, (according to the press release) "will leverage the funding to expedite its vision of a future where AI is a liberating force to help people do their best work".

In addition, they announced the appointment of a new chair. Mike Gregoire. Gregoire brings with him significant expertise in the HCM space. After serving as EVP at PeopleSoft/Oracle, he joined Taleo, and led the company as it grew to the dominant applicant tracking system in the world. His tenure there included an IPO, and then an acquisition by Oracle. Following that he had a led CA Technologies through a period of growth, acquisition, and ultimately sold it to Broadcom before joining Brighton Park as a partner.

Said Gregoire of the investment:

"Paradox is fundamentally aligned with where the world is going. The company is seeing increased adoption as digital transformation becomes more critical to organizational resiliency and long-term success. Paradox is the clear leader in its category and we’re thrilled to partner with their team to execute a vision for the future of work."

Pointing to one of the continuing appeals of automation solutions, Paradox CEO and Founder, Aaron Matos added: “No one goes into recruiting or HR because they like screening resumes, scheduling interviews, or managing paperwork. Our clients love our AI assistant Olivia because she helps them get back to doing the strategic people work that got them into recruiting and HR in the first place.” Reached for additional, comment, Paradox's new CMO (and SmashFly alum) Josh Zwieden adds: "We're super aware of this being an exciting moment for us, but still a very difficult time for lots of people - particularly the recruiting/TA and HR teams we support. We're very optimistic that we can play a key role in helping people and companies get back to work faster, and we're already seeing momentum with clients there. When any sort of hire-back begins in earnest, recruiting, TA, and HR teams will have new kinds of pressure on their shoulders. We're laser focused on being there for our clients - current and new - when that happens."

Paradox has been one of the vendors who have emerged as "winners" in the new hiring models we are adapting to due to Covid-19. Mattos points to this advantage:

“It’s inspiring to see how quickly our team and our technology has helped many of our clients adapt to hiring and talent management challenges they’ve never seen. I’ve never been more confident about the impact assistive technology and conversational AI can deliver for talent teams, candidates, and employees, because we’ve seen the results."

RNN Takeways

First: everyone at Paradox will be breathing a bit easier. While the investment will assuredly be used to invest in growth and product, with the uncertainties facing the global economy at the moment, it would be foolish not to assume that this infusion of capital will give them a certain level of stability an certainty to navigate what is to come.

Second: This is a huge win on Gregoire. Aaron Matos is a smart, capable CEO, and he has assembled a strong team to help execute on vision. This only builds on that. Gregoire brings significant experience scaling businesses and delivering positive exits. Along with that, he is part of a handful of globally-focused executives who have done this within the TA space. Paradox has done a nice job with wins in the partnership space - his address book will only accelerate this, and opens up paths to some pretty interesting exits.

Third: Watch this space. Economic disruptions have a tendency to knock down brands which had seemed unassailable, and give rise to some interesting new power-players. Going into this new economy with capital, strong leadership, and tools which support new models of hiring is a strong advantage for Paradox.