Spott, a Belgian startup building recruitment software powered by artificial intelligence, secured $21 million in Series A funding announced on September 22, 2026. Balderton Capital led the round, with Base10 Partners, Y Combinator and Fortino joining in.
The financing brings the company's total raised to $24.2 million, according to a LinkedIn post from the startup. That figure includes a $3.2 million seed round that Base10 Partners led in May 2025.
The three-year-old company has managed to attract 500 recruitment agencies to its platform, which it describes as an AI-native applicant tracking system combined with customer relationship management tools. On any given day, some 5,000 recruiters log into the system, Balderton Capital said in its announcement of the deal.
Revenue has climbed more than tenfold since early 2026, according to the company. Nearly a fifth of that comes from the Asia-Pacific region, with another 15 percent originating in the United States, the company said. Spott now employs 46 people spread across offices in Leuven, New York and Sydney, according to the company's LinkedIn page.
What Spott actually does
The platform attempts to consolidate functions that recruitment agencies typically juggle across multiple tools: applicant tracking, client relationship management, candidate search, messaging, outreach automation. It's designed to handle databases containing as many as two million candidate records, according to Balderton's announcement.
An AI assistant sits inside the workspace. Electronic signature integration through DocuSign is available, as is a marketing suite for running email campaigns aimed at prospective candidates or clients.
Agencies report placement increases of up to 30 percent after adopting Spott, according to company-reported data, though it's unclear over what time frame or compared to what baseline. One customer, H.W. Anderson, now has more than 100,000 candidate profiles searchable on the platform, alongside years of conversation history. CGP Group, an agency with roughly 200 employees operating across 12 countries, is in the process of rolling Spott out firmwide.
The system keeps human recruiters in the loop. Candidates won't be moved forward in the hiring process or presented to clients without explicit recruiter approval, Balderton noted.
Deployment plans
Spott intends to use the fresh capital to expand its footprint in Sydney and New York, both cities where it already maintains a presence. The company also plans to build out enterprise-grade features and invest in what it calls "proactive, agentic AI capabilities," according to Balderton. That phrase suggests the startup is eyeing more autonomous functionality, though the investor announcement provided few specifics.
The team behind it
Lander Degrève, Manu Vanderveeren and Samuel Smeys founded Spott in 2024 after crossing paths at KU Leuven. All three previously worked at top-tier consulting firms: Bain, McKinsey and BCG, respectively, according to the company's press materials. The startup participated in Y Combinator's Winter 2025 cohort.
"During our work with recruitment businesses, we saw firms under intense pressure to cut costs and make more placements," Degrève told The Next Web in an interview.
A crowded field
Spott is entering a well-established market. Incumbents like Bullhorn and Avionté have long dominated the applicant tracking system space, according to StaffingHub's 2025 State of Staffing report. A newer wave of competitors describing themselves as "AI-native" has emerged recently, including Loxo, Vincere and Recruit CRM, all of which blend tracking, relationship management and AI features in similar ways.
Whether Spott's approach proves differentiated enough to carve out meaningful share remains an open question. Phil Chambers, a partner at Balderton Capital, expressed confidence in the startup's trajectory. "The speed at which customers are adopting Spott shows they have built the solution this market has been waiting for," he said in the firm's announcement.
For now, at least, recruitment agencies seem willing to give the Belgian upstart a look.
