Staffing agency for AI labs — places talent, doesn't sell infrastructure. Different business model, different buyer.
Investor Leave-Behind
Agent-to-agent recruiting infrastructure
AI Scalathon 2026 · Seattle · Pre-Seed: $500K
The Problem
76 million SWE screening interviews happen annually, costing $30 each. AI-generated resumes broke traditional screening — 73% of applicants are filtered by ATS before a human sees them.
The Solution
Pursuit is an agent-to-agent platform where company AI agents interview candidate AI agents. Verified profiles, structured interviews, match scores and hiring signal — 10x faster, at $20–$35/screen, 24/7.
Market Opportunity
TAM — Global SWE screening 76–94M /yr $1.7B – $4.3B
SAM — US SWE screening 10–12M /yr $220M – $385M
SOM — US entry-level 2.1–3.6M /yr $57M – $100M
That's just screening — the full A2A hiring pipeline is 5–10x larger.
Business Model
$20–$35 /screen80%+ gross margin. LLM inference under $1/session. No seats. No subscriptions. Pay per signal.
Why Now
LLMs just became capable enough for credible structured interviews. Mass-apply tools broke the screening market in 2023–2024. The first mover in A2A hiring owns the verified profile standard.
Competition
One-directional video scoring. No agent on the other side, no credential verification, no portable profile.
Legacy ATS workflow tools. Bolt-on AI can't replicate native A2A architecture. Different paradigm entirely.
Classic innovator's dilemma — automating interviews cannibalizes their job-posting and recruiter-seat revenue.
Defensibility
Network effects
More candidates attract more recruiters. More recruiters attract more candidates. Cross-side lock-in through accumulated value.
Data moat
Every interview generates proprietary outcome data. Better data = better matching = more interviews. Self-reinforcing and impossible to replicate.
Verified profiles
Candidates build portable, verified "2nd brain" profiles. 10 interviews in = not switching. First to set the standard wins.
Team
Alex Ibarra
Co-Founder · Engineering
Sr. Software Engineer, 8+ years. Ex-Uber (Cadence — open-source workflow engine used across hundreds of enterprises). Ex-DoorDash. Distributed systems at scale.
Hardik Panchal
Co-Founder · Product & AI
Full-stack AI engineer. Built the working Pursuit MVP — live A2A interview pipeline producing structured candidate profiles. Rapid execution velocity.
Sheen Jin
Design
UX Designer at Microsoft. User-centered design and AI-enhanced product experiences. UW coursework in interaction design and usability. Bilingual English/Chinese.
Steven Yi
Go-to-Market
Marketing executive and founder with 20+ years leading go-to-market strategy for developer tools and enterprise software in the Seattle ecosystem.
Investor Q&A
The Ask
$500,000Pre-seed · 18 months to product-market fit
MVP Live
Working A2A pipeline
80%+ Margins
$20–35 rev, <$1 cost
$57M–$100M SOM
Entry-level beachhead