Is Crelate profitable and how big is it in 2026?

Crelate is privately held with estimated 2024 revenue around $9.5 million (Getlatka estimate) and about 59 employees as of 2024, up from 54 in 2023. No profitability figures are disclosed. It has raised only about $11.5 million total across Seed, Series A, and Series B rounds, with no new round since March 2022.

Crelate is privately held and venture-backed, with Five Elms Capital as lead investor across its Series A ($5.3 million, March 2019) and Series B ($5.01 million, March 2022) rounds; Alliance of Angels is also listed as an investor. No public valuation has been disclosed.

Could AI replace Crelate?

Crelate's core tasks like resume parsing, candidate matching, and screening overlap with what AI-native sourcing tools like Loxo, Noon AI, and Pin market as automatable outside any ATS. Third-party comparison sites note Crelate lacks a proprietary candidate sourcing database, a gap these AI-native entrants target directly as of 2026.

Who is Crelate's biggest competitor?

Bullhorn is Crelate's biggest competitor, holding an estimated 40 percent of the agency ATS market per a 2026-04-26 comparison source. Bullhorn is PE-backed, owned by Insight Venture Partners since a 2017 acquisition, and could pivot down-market to compete directly with Crelate's mid-market base at any time.

How many customers does Crelate have in 2025?

Crelate's own March 2022 press release cited nearly 2,000 customers, but a 2024 third-party estimate from Getlatka put the figure at approximately 1,300 customers with average annual contract value near $7,300. The company's July 2025 blog instead cites over 25,000 individual professionals served, a different metric.

What AI features has Crelate launched recently?

Crelate launched its Discover Agent for AI-powered candidate sourcing on July 31, 2025, followed by the Insights Agent on November 18, 2025, which monitors and refreshes database records. A redesigned chat-first Co-Pilot assistant and Living Resume feature shipped in October 2025, per company release notes.

Job boards and HR platforms · United States

Crelate

crelate.com ↗

Crelate makes recruiting CRM/ATS software for small and mid-size staffing agencies.

Losing its protection

Assessed 22 July 2026 · Evidence as of 22 July 2026

The structural protection is eroding.

On the recordSince 22 July 2026 · Checkable from H1 2026 · Every call on the record Checkpoint: Any confirmation (or absence) of a fresh funding round from Five Elms Capital after its $1.1B Fund VI close

The call

Crelate keeps the agencies it already has through embedded workflows, but has raised no new capital in over three years while AI-native rivals chase the new customers it needs to grow.

Crelate sells hiring and payroll software to about 1,300 to 2,000 small and mid-sized staffing agencies. Its main strength is that customers have years of job placements and payroll data locked into the system, making it hard for them to leave, but that also means Crelate's main lever is keeping existing customers happy rather than winning new ones. The company is under pressure from two directions at once: Bullhorn, a much larger and well-funded competitor, could redesign its software to target Crelate's customers at any time, and a wave of new AI-powered hiring tools are specifically going after the gap Crelate knows it has, a lack of its own candidate database, which means they can offer something Crelate cannot build quickly. The one thing that could change the picture is if Crelate's new AI features actually prove they lower customer turnover and win new clients, or if fresh investor money arrives to fuel growth before Bullhorn or the AI-native rivals make their move.

Why

AI pressure: AI-native full-stack ATS entrants (Loxo, Noon AI, Pin, Recruiterflow). These tools attack the sourcing and candidate-database gap Crelate itself admits it lacks, going after new-logo deals before Crelate locks them in. Could AI do the core job? Only partly.

Bigger players: Bullhorn (Insight Venture Partners-owned, ~40% share). Bullhorn could fix its mid-market pricing and UX at any time and pull agencies down-market, but hasn't shipped that move yet. Could a giant copy it? Yes, easily.

What protects it. Existing agencies have placement history and payroll integrations baked into Crelate, making a switch costly even if new buyers look elsewhere.

What would change this call

Crelate announces a new funding round (Series C or later) within 6-12 months. Would show investor confidence despite 3+ years without fresh capital.
Bullhorn launches a mid-market AI product tier or restructures pricing downward. Would show the incumbent directly attacking Crelate's customer segment.
Independent case study or third-party data on Discover/Insights Agent churn or win impact appears. Would confirm Crelate's AI features work beyond its own marketing claims.

Key numbers

$5.01M Series B, last raise since March 2022 (2022-03)
Revenue estimated $8-11.6M across sources (2025)
Customer count: ~2,000 in 2022 vs ~1,300 in 2024 estimate (2024-12)

Named risks

No new equity funding round since March 2022 despite lead investor closing $1.1 billion fund in 2025. Severity: high
No proprietary candidate sourcing database, a gap AI-native entrants explicitly target. Severity: high
Customer count may have declined from nearly 2,000 in 2022 to an estimated 1,300 in 2024. Severity: medium
Bullhorn, the PE-backed incumbent with ~40% share, could fix mid-market pricing and UX at any time. Severity: high
AI agent effectiveness claims (Discover, Insights, Co-Pilot) are vendor-authored with no independent third-party validation. Severity: medium

Rivals, as read in July 2026

Rival	Direction	Evidence
Bullhorn	losing to	PE-backed, ~40% market share as of 2026-04-26, could pivot down-market to Crelate's mid-market base
Loxo	contesting	Marketed as differentiated on AI-powered candidate sourcing with proprietary database, competing on gap Crelate admits lacking
Noon AI	gaining on	AI-native sourcing tool positioned against Crelate's lack of proprietary candidate database as of 2026-05-22
Pin	gaining on	Comparison site notes Crelate must be paired with dedicated AI sourcing tools like Pin for candidate discovery, 2026-05-22
Recruiterflow	contesting	Named among AI-native full-stack ATS entrants attacking mid-market ATS/CRM category as of 2026

Questions people ask

Is Crelate profitable and how big is it in 2026?: Crelate is privately held with estimated 2024 revenue around $9.5 million (Getlatka estimate) and about 59 employees as of 2024, up from 54 in 2023. No profitability figures are disclosed. It has raised only about $11.5 million total across Seed, Series A, and Series B rounds, with no new round since March 2022.
Who owns Crelate?: Crelate is privately held and venture-backed, with Five Elms Capital as lead investor across its Series A ($5.3 million, March 2019) and Series B ($5.01 million, March 2022) rounds; Alliance of Angels is also listed as an investor. No public valuation has been disclosed.
Could AI replace Crelate?: Crelate's core tasks like resume parsing, candidate matching, and screening overlap with what AI-native sourcing tools like Loxo, Noon AI, and Pin market as automatable outside any ATS. Third-party comparison sites note Crelate lacks a proprietary candidate sourcing database, a gap these AI-native entrants target directly as of 2026.
Who is Crelate's biggest competitor?: Bullhorn is Crelate's biggest competitor, holding an estimated 40 percent of the agency ATS market per a 2026-04-26 comparison source. Bullhorn is PE-backed, owned by Insight Venture Partners since a 2017 acquisition, and could pivot down-market to compete directly with Crelate's mid-market base at any time.
How many customers does Crelate have in 2025?: Crelate's own March 2022 press release cited nearly 2,000 customers, but a 2024 third-party estimate from Getlatka put the figure at approximately 1,300 customers with average annual contract value near $7,300. The company's July 2025 blog instead cites over 25,000 individual professionals served, a different metric.
What AI features has Crelate launched recently?: Crelate launched its Discover Agent for AI-powered candidate sourcing on July 31, 2025, followed by the Insights Agent on November 18, 2025, which monitors and refreshes database records. A redesigned chat-first Co-Pilot assistant and Living Resume feature shipped in October 2025, per company release notes.

Timeline

2025-11-18Crelate launches Insights Agent, calls Living Platform fully realized, cites 25,000+ professionals served
2025-10-17Crelate ships redesigned chat-first Co-Pilot assistant and Living Resume feature
2025-07-31Crelate launches Discover Agent, first AI agent in its Living Platform
2025-05-28Five Elms Capital, Crelate's lead investor, closes $1.1 billion Fund VI
2022-03-01Crelate secures $5.01 million Series B from Five Elms Capital, cites nearly 2,000 customers
2019-03Crelate raises $5.3 million Series A led by Five Elms Capital
2017-02Crelate raises seed funding
2012Crelate founded

Revision history

22 July 2026

First assessed. Losing its protection. The text above is fixed as of this date and is not edited afterwards.

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