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Joonko
Joonko was an Israeli-founded, AI-powered diversity recruiting platform that promised talent-acquisition teams automated access to pre-vetted candidates from underrepresented groups - women, people of color, and veterans. Founded in 2016 by Ilit Raz and named after Everest pioneer Junko Tabei, the company graduated from Techstars Atlanta and the Salesforce Incubator, and raised roughly $30 million from investors including Insight Partners, Target Global, Kapor Capital, and Vertex Ventures Israel. In 2023 the story collapsed: an investor confronted Raz over inconsistencies, she admitted to fabricating customer contracts, bank statements, revenue, and candidate counts, and she resigned. The SEC charged her in 2024 with a $21 million 'AI washing' securities fraud, and Joonko filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after shutting down and laying off all staff.
Textio
Textio is a Seattle-based software company that uses augmented writing - natural language processing and machine learning - to help managers and recruiters write clearer, less biased workplace language. Born from a linguistics PhD's research into how word choice shapes who applies for jobs and how feedback lands, Textio turned bias into something measurable: it scores job posts and performance reviews in real time and suggests fixes. In 2026 it extended that thesis into hiring with Lavalier, an interview-intelligence product.