Israeli AI chatbot startup Spetz.io to be acquired by U.S. company Paradox.ai for $5 million

The Israeli startup Spetz.io, which has developed a platform to recruit employees on digital channels, was acquired by Paradox.ai which is also active in the management and human resources platforms in the U.S. market. The value of the acquisition wasn’t disclosed, but a person familiar with the move told Calcalist on the condition of anonymity that the deal is estimated to be valued at $5 million. The Israeli startup has so far raised $750,000 in private funding.

Spetz.io was founded in 2017 by Yael Florenthal, who serves as COO, Alon Slutzky (CTO), and Yam Dviras (CEO) under the auspices of the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center’s ZELL entrepreneurship program. The company has raised $750,000 since it was founded from the startup accelerator program Fusion LA that works to promote Israeli startups in the U.S. market, as well as from the American fund GoAhead Ventures. The company works with leading customers in Israel and the U.S., including IKEA, EY, Sodastream, and more.

Spetz.io’s product is a messaging platform that helps companies communicate with potential candidates through using messaging apps like WhatsApp with friendly, automated chat to reduce tensions in the hiring process.

Spetz employs nine people at its offices in Tel Aviv, and with this acquisition, the company will become Paradox’s development center for all EMEA countries (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) and is expected to expand its manpower by hiring dozens of additional employees for technological and business positions over the coming months.

Paradox is one of the leading tech companies in the HR sector in the U.S. and its products are used by some of the largest companies and businesses in the world, among them Unilever, McDonald’s, PepsiCo. Inc., CVS Health, and Aramark.

During the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic many organizations found themselves facing the challenge of recruiting employees, without the ability to conduct physical interviews while under travel restrictions. The platform that Spetz developed assists organizations - which recruit hundreds and thousands of employees - to easily communicate with candidates for different positions in the company. In addition, Spetz’s system automates different tasks that “land” on HR managers’ platforms, such as screening candidates, scheduling interviews, and flashing notifications that automatically remind a candidate in order to assist them in filling out forms on time and preparing ahead of time for digital interviews.

“As a result of the coronavirus, the HR world has undergone years’ worth of transformation in a matter of months. We see this from the recruitment process through managing work from home. ‘Older’ companies have changed their view, learned to use technological tools, and make decisions based on data on a screen and success indices which in the past weren’t taken into account during the recruitment process. Therefore, we expect the HR industry to continue to grow over the next few years and plan on being at the forefront of technological solutions in the arena,” Dvir, Spetz’s CEO, said.

“Due to the complications from the coronavirus, we've expanded our sales by tens of percent over the past few months and reached tens of thousands of candidates who passed through our systems every month. Our strengthened presence has put us under the radar of a number of companies in the field,” Dvir said of the acquisition process.

“When we met with the Paradox team we immediately saw a massive opportunity to build something bigger than ourselves,” said Dvir. “Combining our expertise with Paradox’s vision and momentum as a clear category leader is really one of those ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’ opportunities. We can’t wait to get started accelerating Paradox’s vision for a future where recruiting is frictionless, elegant, and people-centric.”

Paradox is based out of Scottsdale, Arizona, and is a leader in conversational AI. The company was founded at the end of 2016, and within a few years, it has become one of the leading companies in the U.S. for managing human resources processes by using automation tools to perform technical tasks such as recruitment, scheduling, communicating with candidates, and more. In that way, companies that are looking to hire “in the new post-Covid-19 world” can spend more time with people and the essence of their work and not with the operation, logistics, and bureaucracy that is often involved in the recruitment processes.

“This acquisition is all about aligning with incredibly smart people who share our passion for building products that recruiting teams love,” founder and CEO of Paradox Aaron Matos said. “We were impressed with the Spetz team’s growth, and even more impressed with their vision for what we can build together.”