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Jobful has raised $1.0M across 2 funding rounds.
Key people at Jobful.
Jobful has raised $1.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Jobful builds an AI-powered talent community platform, integrating with HR systems to transform hiring. Its core offering uses gamification to engage candidates, empowering young professionals in career development. The platform helps organizations reduce time-to-hire and improve culture fit by fostering dynamic talent communities, shifting recruitment towards a strategic workforce approach.
Mihai Cepoi founded Jobful, driven by personal frustrations with traditional job applications. His insight revealed inefficiencies and impersonal experiences in recruitment, especially for emerging talent. Cepoi established the company to address these issues, developing a solution emphasizing candidate engagement and a community-focused methodology for talent acquisition.
Jobful serves businesses and educational institutions cultivating talent pools and enhancing recruitment. The company's vision aims for a more connected, efficient talent ecosystem, empowering organizations to attract candidates and individuals to find fitting career paths. It establishes talent acquisition as a proactive, community-driven endeavor for all stakeholders.
Jobful is a Romania-based talent community platform developed by Playful Software, founded in 2017 (with initial development in 2018), that enables companies, universities, NGOs, and agencies to build engaging talent pools, match candidates to opportunities using AI-driven tools, and nurture skills through courses, gamification, and events.[1][2][3][4] It serves employers seeking efficient recruitment, educational institutions connecting students to jobs, and social organizations aiding vulnerable groups like refugees, solving pain points in traditional hiring such as lengthy pre-screening, skill gaps, and low candidate engagement by offering human-focused design, AI recommenders, and upskilling modules.[2][3][4] With over 40,000 registered users and 200 employer profiles, including clients like Coca Cola HBC, ING Bank, Microsoft, and ERSTE Bank, Jobful demonstrates growth through pivots like mid-pandemic enhancements and initiatives such as the 2022 Jobs4ukr platform, which registered 10,000 Ukrainian refugees for job matching.[4]
Playful Software, the parent company behind Jobful, was founded in 2017 in Bucharest, Romania, with Jobful launching in 2018 amid a recognized shift in recruitment toward people-focused experiences over rigid processes.[1][4][7] The idea emerged from observing an "upcoming paradigm shift" in the industry, leading to a platform rethinking candidate journeys via human-centered design; a mid-pandemic pivot expanded it to address recruitment holistically.[1] Early traction built over five formative years, marked by learning and adaptation, culminating in social impact efforts like the 2022 Jobs4ukr partnership with Project Voyager, which provided job access, language courses, and counseling for war-affected Ukrainians.[1][4] The team's shared mission—"developing technology that supports any individual in their professional journey"—and vision of "empowering professionals" drive a culture of boldness, adaptability, and teamwork.[1][6]
Jobful rides the trend of talent shortages in a digital future—where the World Economic Forum emphasizes talent over technology—and multigenerational workforces needing equitable, engaging matching amid rising skill gaps and remote opportunities.[2][4] Timing aligns with post-pandemic recruitment shifts toward communities over one-off job boards, amplified by crises like the Ukraine war, enabling platforms to extend reach geographically and nurture long-term pipelines.[1][3][4] Market forces favoring it include AI adoption in HR, demand for cost-reducing tools (e.g., faster hires, lower time-to-fill), and social entrepreneurship growth, as seen in IKEA Social Entrepreneurship recognition.[3][4] It influences the ecosystem by promoting inclusive hiring for underserved groups, boosting employer branding via culture showcases, and providing data-driven insights into career trends for universities and agencies.[3][4]
Jobful is poised to expand its AI-enhanced platform amid intensifying global talent wars, potentially scaling Jobs4ukr-like initiatives and upskilling for emerging skills like AI literacy. Trends such as hybrid work, DEI mandates, and gamified learning will propel growth, evolving its influence from regional disruptor to key player in equitable HR tech. As recruitment paradigms shift further toward communities, Jobful's human-AI blend positions it to empower professionals at scale, redefining talent acquisition from transactional to transformative.
Key people at Jobful.
Jobful has raised $1.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Jobful's investors include Embedded Capital, Join Capital, Kelly Ford, Lucas Cranach, Oliver Roskopf, Philipp Kloeckner, Roland Grenke.
Jobful has raised $1.0M across 2 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $580K Seed in November 2020.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 1, 2020 | $580K Seed | — | Embedded Capital, Join Capital, Kelly Ford, Lucas Cranach, Oliver Roskopf, Philipp Kloeckner, Roland Grenke | Announced |
| Oct 1, 2019 | $420K Seed | — | Embedded Capital, Join Capital, Kelly Ford, Lucas Cranach, Oliver Roskopf, Philipp Kloeckner, Roland Grenke | Announced |
