Clera

About

Clera (Clera Labs, Inc.) builds an AI talent agent that represents candidates instead of employers. You describe your experience, preferences and dealbreakers in a two-minute chat over email, iMessage or WhatsApp, and Clera introduces you directly to founders and hiring managers at venture-backed startups, with context on who you are and why you fit. There is no application form: the service is free for candidates, and companies pay only when they hire. As of 2026 Clera represents more than 185,000 people across the US and Europe, works with over 600 startups backed by investors such as Index Ventures, Sequoia, General Catalyst, Y Combinator and a16z, and reports an average of eight days from first chat to first interview. The company was founded in 2025 by Sebastian Scott (CEO), Alexander Farr (COO) and Daniel Wintermeyer (CTO). Scott and Farr met during their studies at TU Munich, then moved to Berlin, where they met Wintermeyer, previously Head of Engineering at the HR-tech company Lofino. Farr had earlier built recruiting and go-to-market at the Berlin messaging startup Superchat. The founding team spent a year in a travelling hacker house across Latin America before settling in San Francisco, and Clera passed one million dollars in annualised revenue within six months of launch. In April 2026 it closed a three-million-dollar pre-seed round led by 1984 Ventures, with angels including Philipp Klöckner. German customers include Langdock, Superchat and Zauber. Clera is headquartered in San Francisco with teams in Berlin and New York. The Berlin team hires German-speaking working students in recruiting, business development and talent operations, and roles are on-site. The company also runs its own German-language job board on Ashby, where it lists internships and working-student positions it fills for client startups in Berlin and Munich; those listings describe the client, not Clera itself.