Scottsdale AI firm Paradox acquires New York workforce analytics startup
Image provided by Paradox.
Paradox, a Scottsdale-based unicorn company ,aims to boost its AI-powered conversational workforce recruiting software through a new startup acquisition.
The Valley company announced on Feb. 7 that it acquired Eqtble, a workforce automation startup headquartered in New York. The acquisition merges Paradox’s conversational AI workforce recruitment software with Eqtble’s data analytics capabilities to create an easily accessible platform for global clients, according to the company.
“AI is the future of talent acquisition — and the foundation of useful AI is high quality data, often connected from different sources that helps our clients solve real business challenges,” Adam Godson, CEO of Paradox, said in a statement. “We’ve always believed that conversations are the UI of the future, and we see an opportunity to create a data foundation that powers people intelligence in a conversational, frictionless way.”
Paradox has more than 1,000 clients, including IHG Hotels, Kraft Heinz, FedEx, McDonald’s, 7-Eleven and Chipotle. Paradox’s signature product, Olivia, is a conversational AI assistant that automates early stages of recruiting — including candidate screening, interview scheduling and onboarding — using mobile, chat and text messages.
Last year, Paradox’s AI assistant scheduled more than 20 million interviews and powered 1 billion AI-driven interactions with job candidates in 30 languages, saving recruiting teams millions of dollars in costs and hours of manual work, according to the company.
Founded in 2021, Eqtble’s analytics platform helps businesses gather raw data from human resources systems to provide “actionable insights” into their workforce, allowing them to make informed decisions. Eqtble is a graduate of California-based startup accelerator Y Combinator. Some of its clients include Discord, WeWork, Telus and Brightcove.
Eqtble’s team of five employees is joining Paradox, increasing the company’s headcount to more than 630 workers. The combined company is already working on a fully-integrated software platform slated for release later this year.
Eqtble is led by CEO Joseph Ifiegbu, who previously held people analytics roles at Snap and WeWork. Ifiegbu cofounded the startup with Ethan Veres and Gabe Horwitz, who formerly served as a data scientist at Johnson & Johnson and director of people analytics at WeWork.
As part of the acquisition, Ifiegbu joins Paradox as senior director of engineering, while Horwitz and Veres will serve as senior product directors, a Paradox spokesperson told AZ Inno.
The team plans to work remote, but will travel to Paradox’s Scottsdale headquarters frequently to work closely with the company’s product teams.
Paradox’s acquisition of Eqtble is its third since the company was founded in 2016 by Aaron Matos, who is the former CEO of Jobing.com and Recruiting.com.
In 2021, Paradox achieved unicorn status after raising $200 million in a series C round that brought its valuation up to $1.5 billion.
Godson took the helm of Paradox in March 2024, after Matos stepped down as CEO to focus more on the company’s innovation and long-term strategy, according to previous reporting.