Mya Systems, the creator of the AI-recruiter Mya, and previously known as FirstJob, announced today that it has secured $11.4M in Series A funding, led by Emergence Capital. The funding is one of many proof points underscoring the break-neck speed with which Mya, an intelligent assistant that uses conversational AI to transform the application and hiring experience for candidates and recruiters, has captured the industry's attention and catapulted to a leadership position.

Launched just a year ago as the first intelligent assistant to address the pain points in recruiting, Mya rapidly acquired large data sets across a range of industries by scaling the technology for some of the highest-volume agency and enterprise businesses. The company quickly developed an A-list of early customers including three of the world's largest recruiting agencies, and several Fortune 500 companies. Despite zero marketing investment since launching, demand for Mya has grown 26 percent MoM, particularly among retail, light industrial and call center employers.

The company will leverage its financing to scale in order to meet demand and to hire the machine learning, natural language processing and data science talent required to continue developing Mya's underlying technology. Mya Systems also announced that along with its name change it will begin to exclusively focus its resources on Mya and her development.

"Our financing and new focus significantly increase our momentum and ideally position Mya Systems to grow and solidify our strong leadership position in the recruiting arena," said Mya Systems CEO and Co-founder Eyal Grayevsky. "Our proprietary natural language technology is in production and scaling rapidly with our existing customers. We're on pace to process 2M candidates by year end and the data from those conversations will help fuel Mya's ability to learn and become a more effective recruiter."

About Mya

Mya addresses the inefficiencies in recruiting that have become increasingly prevalent with the growing use of job boards and other digital job application processes. These problems are evidenced by reports that 75 percent of workers submitting applications don't hear back from employers and 54 percent of employers say it's become more difficult to find qualified candidates. Mya's technology leverages proprietary natural language processing and machine learning techniques to automate outreach and communication with job candidates throughout the end-to-end recruiting process. Mya applies advanced matching algorithms and predictive models to shortlist large applicant pools so recruiters can prioritize their time with candidates most likely to succeed. She also keeps existing candidate databases warm and engaged, refreshing profile contents and attracting best-fit candidates to new roles.

By helping to qualify, engage, and nurture job candidates, Mya automates up to 75 percent of the recruiting process and drives dramatic improvements to the candidate experience. For one customer, Mya helped save as much as 80 percent in recruitment costs, increased candidate satisfaction to a score of 9.8 out of 10 and enhanced recruiter productivity by 200 percent [1].

"Mya Systems is on the leading edge of what Emergence believes is a huge opportunity to leverage machine learning to solve challenges for enterprise customers. With their deep roots in the recruiting space, the founders have direct experience with the inefficiencies inherent in the application and hiring process," said Joe Floyd, Partner, Emergence Capital. "The Company has trained its AI using the proprietary data asset driven by the millions of job conversations Mya has facilitated. We believe Mya will have a massive impact on people's lives as employees find better fit jobs faster and employers find better matched candidates with less manual effort."

"The next generation of software will use AI to coach workers to do more than they ever thought possible," said Gordon Ritter, Founder and General Partner, Emergence Capital. "The Mya team is transforming how high-volume employers will scale to meet the needs of millions of qualified workers. The technical prowess, deep industry experience and vision of the leadership at Mya are the ingredients of success for this new era of software."

About Mya Systems

Formerly known as FirstJob, Mya Systems was co-founded in 2012 by Eyal Grayevsky, CEO and James Maddox, CTO. The San Francisco-based company launched Mya, its AI-recruiter in July of 2016, and quickly gained an A-list of customers including three of the five largest global recruiting agencies and several Fortune 500 companies. Its team is comprised of seasoned recruiting, sales, marketing and business executives as well as world-class scientists and engineers, including many with PhDs and/or Masters in Machine Learning, NLP and Data Science. Since its launch, Mya has garnered industry recognition and several awards, including: recognition in Bersin by Deloitte's 2017 Disruptions Report, named a Top 10 Recruiting Tool by Recruiter.com and selected to Kairos Society's K50.