Alex is an agentic AI recruiting platform that conducts live, two-way phone and video interviews with job candidates on behalf of enterprise employers and staffing firms. The platform automates early-
Alex is an agentic AI recruiting platform that conducts live, two-way phone and video interviews with job candidates on behalf of enterprise employers and staffing firms. The platform automates early-funnel hiring tasks including resume screening, scheduling, fraud detection, candidate outreach, and ATS sync. As of early 2026, Alex has conducted over one million candidate interviews and reports a 96% five-star candidate rating. The company was formerly known as Apriora (YC W24) and rebranded to Alex after acquiring the alex.com domain for $500K+.
Total raised
$26.5M
Last stage
Series A
Investors
Aaron Wang
Aaron Wang co-founded Alex in January 2024 and serves as CEO. Before Alex, he worked at Facebook AI (Meta) and as a quantitative analyst at a hedge fund. He studied computer science, applied mathematics, and economics at Brown University. Wang and Rytel began building companies together as undergraduate students at Brown. He spent $500K+ to acquire the alex.com domain. Active on LinkedIn publishing content on AI recruiting, go-to-market strategy, and founder-led growth.
LinkedInDonald Donckers
Joined Alex as Head of Growth in July 2025. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Previously co-founded a stealth AI startup (March 2024 – May 2025).
LinkedInJohn Rytel
John Rytel co-founded Alex in January 2024 and serves as CTO. Described as a 'technical co-founder who just builds,' he is responsible for the core engineering and AI infrastructure of the platform. Rytel and Wang built apps together in college at Brown and have co-founded companies since their student days.
LinkedInSteven McLean
Joined Alex as Head of Sales in October 2025 as a Founding GTM hire. Previously served as VP of Account Management with enterprise SaaS sales experience.
LinkedInNo applications, no recruiter spam. Just the intro.
A few questions to make sure this role is the right shape for you. Two minutes.
I write the intro, send it to the founder, and handle the back-and-forth.
If they’re a yes, I book the chat. You show up — that’s the whole job-hunt.