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HrTech startup: 10xHire
- Can you tell us about yourself and your role?
Hello, I am Angelique Schouten, Founder & CEO of 10xHire and 10x.Team.
- When was 10xHire founded?
10x.Hire was founded in 2023.
- Can you give us a brief introduction to your company and its mission?
We set out to build a platform for elite fractional professionals.
But the real blocker wasn’t talent—it was broken recruitment.
Resumes told stories but interviews lacked depth and hiring managers were left digging. Everyone loved the concept of a fractional professional platform, but they felt more like headhunters.
So we built the thing we couldn’t find: an automated system that hires based on execution, not talk. Not a better resume parser. A better talent predictor.
That’s how 10xHire was born: to help hiring managers focus only on top-performing, execution-ready talent—so they can move fast and hire right.
Our Mission
Recruitment is broken.
Traditional recruiters and headhunters tap the same exhausted talent pools—driven by placements, not performance. Hiring managers are left doing the hard work: digging deeper, validating capabilities, and taking the real risk.
With 20% to 50% of new hires are gone or deemed unsuccessful within a year or two leading to a total cost of $540 billion per year globally.
At 10xHire, our mission is to change that. We help companies hire based on execution, not promises—using AI simulations, outcome-based assessments, and a global talent network designed for action. As part of the 10x.Hire team, we believe we are all part of something bigger.
Just like each thread in a woven fabric, every person, team, and company forms a piece of the larger pattern. 10xHire exists to help you find the right thread—so your company’s fabric is built to last, grow, and thrive. We believe the future of work starts with how you hire and who you hire.
- What is your company's North Star metric?
Candidates successfully progressing through AI-powered first interviews: it’s the best signal that we’re doing our job in helping recruiters move the right candidates forward faster, with less manual work and more consistency. Every product decision we make is aimed at helping teams assess more high-potential candidates, in less time, without adding overhead.
This metric ties directly to outcomes our customers care about: reduced time-to-hire, better candidate experience, and smarter use of internal resources.
Because when your hiring process scales, so does your business.
- How did 10xHire get started, and what inspired its creation?
We started 10xHire as founders who were growing teams quickly and experiencing the same pain over and over: first interviews became the bottleneck. Not because recruiters weren’t doing their jobs, but because the system isn’t currently designed to scale.
For example: scheduling delays (even worse if it’s across timezones), no-shows, inconsistent screening, too much time spent on candidates who aren’t a fit… With our Video AI Recruiter, we aren’t looking to cut people out of the process but rather we want to give hiring teams time back so they can focus on making the right decisions. So we built the product we wish we’d had as operators. It’s designed to make hiring easier, not just faster.
And the idea is not to replace recruiters but support them in having less admin and be able to focus instead on qualified candidates.
- What HR solutions does 10xHire offer, and how are they AI-powered?
We offer an AI-powered Video Recruiter, focused specifically on first-round interviews, where hiring speed and process often influence the candidate’s experience. It’s a practical tool for helping teams scale without burning out recruiters or sacrificing quality.
We designed it to help:
- Recruiters who are losing hours every week due to repetitive admin work
- Hiring teams that want more consistency and structure through the screening process
- Candidates who want a fairer, more flexible experience
How AI powers it:
- On-demand video interviews with digital (AI) avatars, available 24/7
- Smart scoring based on structured role criteria
- Side-by-side comparisons of candidates to support hiring decisions
- AI review of job descriptions
- Available in multiple languages (if a language is not immediately available, we can add it upon request)
- What are some key milestones?
- Founded: 10xHire (ex: 10x.team) was founded in 2023
- Product development: The 10xHire platform entered development Q2 2025
- Beta launch: May 2025
- Public beta access: June 2025
- Q2 2025 – onwards: We’ll continue improving the platform based on real feedback from the companies that are already using it and their recruiters, hiring managers, and candidates. We're focusing on what adds the most value; what comes next will be shaped by what we learn during this beta phase.
- What is your strategic approach to AI technology? Developing proprietary models in-house versus integrating external AI solutions?
At 10xHire, we see AI as a powerful tool, but only if it's used with a clear purpose. Our approach is simple: we use AI where it can create the most impact without adding complexity. That means no hype for the sake of hype. Just smart, focused implementation. For us, AI isn’t the strategy. It’s the engine. The strategy is knowing exactly when and how to use it.
So, we're not building flashy features to chase trends. We’re trying to solve real problems, for example: saving recruiters time, reducing repetitive admin work, and making candidate evaluation more structured and scalable. And how do we do that? By combining best-in-class external AI capabilities with our own product logic and interview frameworks. That way, we stay fast, flexible, and laser-focused on outcomes that actually matter to hiring teams.
- What were the biggest challenges in integrating AI into your products, and how did you address them? Buy vs Build?
When it comes to buy vs build, we have made intentional choices: we use proven external models where they can speed us up, but have built our own scoring frameworks, workflows, and product logic to stay in control of the hiring experience.
The challenge isn’t creating/choosing the tech. It’s building trust. Hiring is personal. So from the start, we focus on transparency and recruiter control. And, our message is clear: We aren’t set out to replace recruiters. We have built something that takes the heavy lifting off their plates so (again) they can focus on what actually matters: qualified candidates.
Every interview is structured and reviewable. And, candidates aren’t ranked by mystery algorithms: they’re assessed against role-specific criteria .
- How does your company ensure its AI systems are unbiased and ethical?
We have built 10xHire to be consistent, easy to use, and actually useful. It’s not just another software tool labeled “AI.” Every candidate gets the same structured interview based on their role, in the same format. Scoring is based on clear, role-specific criteria, not gut feeling. We also made sure it’s inclusive. Not every great candidate is a native English speaker, so our platform works in multiple languages from day one.
It’s available 24/7 – because not all candidates/recruiters are on the same timezone. And recruiters always have full visibility and the final say. So. we’re not removing people from the loop. We’re giving them better tools to make fairer, faster decisions on repetitive early-stage interviews (and skip the mental gymnastics of 40 back-to-back screening calls).
- What feedback have you received from clients about your solution(s), and how has it shaped your product going forward?
Not only are we already using it ourselves BUT a handful of early teams (BETA testers), varying from software business consultancy to call centers and temporary staffing agencies, among others. The feedback so far has been clear (and encouraging): this is very much needed.
Recruiters appreciate the time savings, the structure, and the simplicity, so no training needed. And the constructive feedback is already shaping what we’re working on next. Comments like “Works super cool, saves a lot of time!”, "I haven't seen another tool in this space perform at this level” and “Love this approach!” are giving us fuel to improve it… and even candidates say things like "It didn't feel annoying that I didn't talk to a human” and “Finally, I can take interviews in my own time”.
- Can you share a success story or case study that highlights the impact of your technology on a client?
We’re still in the early stages of the beta phase, but the initial results are promising. Beta testers are already seeing real-time savings, especially on scheduling, repetitive first-round interviews, and early-stage candidate screening. Recruiters are spending less time chasing calendars and more time on strategic tasks and following up with qualified candidates.
Hiring managers are comparing candidates with clearer, more structured input. The most common feedback? “This is already freeing up hours we didn’t have.”As we gather more data, we’ll share concrete results. But even now, it’s clear: giving teams the tools to focus on what matters is making a difference.
- What is your vision for the future of HR tech and AI? And what are your company's upcoming goals?
The future of work and HR tech isn’t about AI replacing people. It’s about using AI to support the people that are at the center of scaling companies to do it faster, and more effectively. HR and recruiting teams are expected to hire smart and fast, sifting among hundreds of CVs, whilst not drowning in the process. That’s unrealistic without better tools.
Our vision is to build an AI-powered hiring engine that helps companies scale without scaling chaos by:
- Clearing the repetitive admin work from recruiters' plates
- Giving hiring teams better and faster signals because they can compare candidates side-by-side
- Making candidate experiences more flexible and fair
In the next 12 months, our goals are to continue fine-tuning our platform so it’s the best AI-powered hiring engine out there, and for that we’re building the infrastructure that modern hiring teams actually need.
- What key milestones has your company achieved so far? (e.g., funding rounds, partnerships, customer acquisition)
- Attracted notable investors, from companies such as Ohpen, Adyen, Brand New Day, Euro-Rijn, Narwhal Investments, and Valtech.
- First European/Dutch-based AI recruiter
- Launched during BETA phase to 15 languages
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