# Claire McTaggart

> Claire McTaggart is the founder and CEO of SquarePeg, an AI-powered recruiting platform that acts as an intelligence layer on top of applicant tracking systems - screening, sourcing, enriching and scoring candidates beyond the resume. A former Monitor Deloitte strategy consultant who ran campus recruiting, she left a partner-track career to attack a problem she had lived: the resume is a terrible predictor of fit. Starting with psychometric matching and evolving into an AI evaluation engine integrated with 95+ ATS platforms, SquarePeg raised a $3.5M seed round in February 2025 led by Next Frontier Capital, bringing total funding to roughly $6.4M.

- **Role:** Founder & CEO at SquarePeg
- **Organizations:** SquarePeg (SquarePeg Hires), Monitor Deloitte, Founder Institute
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** BA, University of Michigan, MS, Foreign Service (International Commerce & Business), Georgetown University
- **Known for:** Founded and leads SquarePeg, an AI recruiting platform integrated with 95+ ATS systems, Raised a $3.5M seed round (Feb 2025) led by Next Frontier Capital; ~$6.4M total funding, Built an investor pipeline of 300 funds to close an early pre-seed round of roughly $780k

## Career timeline

- **early career** — Explored journalism, foreign policy at a think tank, and government work
- **2010-2012** — Earned MS in Foreign Service at Georgetown University
- **consulting years** — Strategy consultant at Monitor Deloitte for ~4 years; led campus recruiting, sourcing strategy and case-interview hiring
- **pre-founding** — Spent four-plus years working in the Middle East before relocating to New York City
- **2016** — Left consulting and founded SquarePeg to match people to companies on fit, not just resumes
- **2022** — Built SquarePeg's all-in-one recruiting platform for startups
- **2023-2024** — Conducted 18 months of recruiter interviews, repositioning SquarePeg as an AI intelligence layer for ATS
- **2025-02** — Closed $3.5M seed round led by Next Frontier Capital

## Achievements

- Founded and leads SquarePeg, an AI recruiting platform integrated with 95+ ATS systems
- Raised a $3.5M seed round (Feb 2025) led by Next Frontier Capital; ~$6.4M total funding
- Built an investor pipeline of 300 funds to close an early pre-seed round of roughly $780k
- Developed psychometric models measuring 19 workplace personality traits for candidate evaluation
- Grew SquarePeg to roughly 21 employees, headquartered in Salt Lake City

## Latest updates

- **2025-02** — SquarePeg announced a $3.5M seed round led by Next Frontier Capital, with Acadian Ventures, Bread & Butter Ventures and Silicon Road Ventures, to build a candidate-evaluation platform for mid-market recruiters.

## Links

- Website: https://squarepeg.ai
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairemctaggart1/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/mctaggartclaire

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/claire-mctaggart
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-25