Many of the startups working to commercialize artificial intelligence nowadays have chosen recruiting as the area where they wish to make their mark.

Among them is Paris-based Clustree SA, which today said it has raised $7.9 million from local funds Idinvest Partners and Alven Capital to help it stand out from the pack. The startup offers a recommendation system that uses machine learning algorithms to help match professionals with positions in which they can put their skills to full use. The software works by correlating each user’s qualifications against a database of 250 million career paths to identify the advancement opportunities available to them. 

It’s the same basic concept applied by Workey Employees Recruitment Ltd., another AI startup that secured funding today, in its recruiting service. The latter offering promises not only to streamline the hiring process for job seekers but also to help them find positions that they might not stumble upon on their own. The difference is that while Workey focuses on external recruiting, Clustree’s service is mainly designed for identifying candidates within a firm’s existing workforce.

Making it easier for HR teams to hire internally has several advantages. First, organizations can fill more positions with people who are already familiar with their culture and businesses processes. Prompting employees has the added benefit of increase morale, which in turn tends to improve retention rates. This latter factor is a major consideration in and of itself given the high frequency at which modern professionals switch companies. 

With that said, Clustree is not limiting its prospects. Bénédicte de Raphélis Soissan, the startup’s founder and chief executive, told TechCrunch that its platform also be useful for external recruiting. Moreover, companies can give personnel the ability to check for potential advancement opportunities on their own through a self-service feed.

Clustree’s value proposition has helped it land clients such as Orange SA and L’Oréal SA along with a total of $11.5 million in venture funding to date.

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