Mappa’s AI voice evaluation helps you discover the most effective job candidates and can showcase its tech at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025

Even after reviewing resumes, cowl letters, and interviews, choosing the proper candidate for a job could be a mysterious course of. Hiring managers usually depend on their biases concerning the world or intestine emotions to tell their determination, making the method removed from a precise science.

That’s why Sarah Lucena constructed Mappa, an AI-powered behavioral intelligence platform that goals to take a few of the guesswork out of hiring. Mappa educated an AI mannequin to detect voice patterns that correlate with sure traits, equivalent to communication model, empathy, and confidence. Candidates merely reply some questions from Mappa’s AI agent, after which the platform sends hiring managers a shortlist of candidates with traits which are appropriate with the position.

Mappa is a Startup Battlefield Prime 20 finalist at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 in San Francisco.

“Mappa involves the market with the purpose of actually, actually understanding individuals,” Lucena mentioned in an interview with TechCrunch. “We don’t actually categorize traits pretty much as good or dangerous. We perceive traits as appropriate or not.”

Lucena based Mappa in 2023 along with her two co-founders, Pablo Bergolo and Daniel Moretti, and has raised $3.4 million in a seed spherical led by Tim Draper’s funding agency, Draper Associates. In lower than three years, the startup has scaled to greater than 130 clients within the U.S. and greater than $4 million in annualized recurring income.

Mappa claims considered one of its largest benefits is information. The startup constructed extremely curated datasets particularly for understanding human habits. Mappa initially tried to evaluate candidates primarily based on video submissions and their on-line presence, nevertheless, they’ve discovered voice evaluation to be the simplest technique.

Mappa’s platform has already helped corporations discover staff that stick round for longer, in keeping with Lucena. Whereas the usual annual turnover charge for corporations is round 30%, she says staff employed via Mappa have a turnover charge of simply 2%.

Lucena says Mappa’s focus is all the time serving to corporations discover the most effective individuals, however that usually leads to a extra equitable hiring course of. Mappa has facilitated over 3,000 hires so far, and greater than 60% of them had been girls, LGBTQ+, or immigrants. Lucena, who was born and raised in Brazil, says she’s proud to have created extra alternatives for these individuals.

Shifting ahead, Lucena says she sees Mappa evolving from a providers firm into an infrastructure supplier. The startup’s API has seen traction amongst corporations who wish to use its behavioral evaluation in conditions past hiring. Tim Draper personally makes use of Mappa to evaluate founders his agency is contemplating investing in, and the academic platform Re-Skilling.ai makes use of the platform to grasp expertise that college students can enhance on.

Sooner or later, Lucena sees that Mappa may very well be used to assist approve candidates for loans who don’t have an intensive credit score historical past. She sees Mappa as a software to assist assess individuals extra pretty in every kind of settings.

If you wish to hear from Mappa firsthand, and see dozens of extra pitches, attend helpful workshops, and make the connections that drive enterprise outcomes, head right here to study extra about this 12 months’s Disrupt, held October 27 to 29 in San Francisco.