Startup Tales | How Joule is revolutionizing HR with 40-second videos and AI

Founded in Padua in 2021, the innovative startup evaluates candidates’ attitudes and soft skills through the analysis of a short self-introduction video. A more reliable solution than traditional tools, aimed at both talents and companies, addressing the intrinsic problems of recruitment and internal assessment processes.

Finding jobs and ideal candidates starting from a 40-second video analyzed by artificial intelligence: this is the challenge that Joule has chosen to take on and overcome. Founded in 2021 in Padua, the startup was created with the ambition of revolutionizing the personnel selection process by introducing an innovative approach based on cutting-edge technology.

At the heart of the project lies a proprietary algorithm capable of analyzing a video self-introduction and delivering an in-depth profile of the candidate, evaluating not only their professional background but, above all, their attitudes and actual talents.

Joule’s technology is the result of collaboration between engineers and psychologists, and is based on multimodal models capable of interpreting both verbal and non-verbal signals: grammar, tone of voice, posture, facial expressiveness, rhythm, and speech intensity. The idea stems from the concrete observation of a common problem in the HR world: too often, during interviews, candidates appear very different from how they are described in their résumés.

Joule’s innovative approach to HR

Laura Sposato’s background

It was Padua-born entrepreneur Laura Sposato, now twenty-six, who turned this issue into a concrete and scalable business idea. Since her teenage years, she has dealt with responsibility and discipline, both essential for launching her entrepreneurial initiative.

“I practiced competitive gymnastics for several years, first rhythmic and then aesthetic group gymnastics. At 14, I joined the national team as a starter, participating in European and world competitions: an experience that taught me the value of discipline and determination, especially because it had to be balanced with schoolwork,” says Joule’s founder and CEO.

The first entrepreneurial initiative

“In the meantime,” Sposato continues, “I started coaching younger girls and, at school, I served as the student representative. During my university studies in Economics and Business at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, I also participated in a first entrepreneurial initiative related to summer camps as head of partnership: an important milestone in my personal and professional development.”

The idea behind the birth of Joule

Alongside this experience, during her academic internship, Sposato joined her family’s company operating in the HR sector, where she came into direct contact with the problem that would become the starting point for Joule. “I organized and conducted interviews, but I always noticed the same issue: the person in front of me was often very different from what was written in the CV. So I asked myself whether it was possible to have better tools to understand the people we have in front of us, and how to do so,” recounts Joule’s founder.

The first technological challenge

From this insight, in March 2021, came the idea that led to the birth of the startup: collecting more precise information about candidates through technology, overcoming the limitations of the traditional résumé.

“At the beginning, I thought about working with holograms which, in my vision, would allow me to understand who was in front of me,” explains Sposato. “The challenges,” she continues, “were twofold: on the one hand, the technology was not yet sufficiently developed, and to some extent still isn’t; on the other hand, producing the holograms required 360-degree video recordings, which meant candidates had to equip themselves with specific cameras or, more realistically, go to dedicated spaces set up for these recordings, incurring significant resource costs.”

The intuition about Artificial Intelligence

An additional challenge lay in the need to analyze the holograms. The young entrepreneur from Padua, after choosing to study the range of solutions available on the market, discovered artificial intelligence and grasped its potential at a time in history when ChatGPT was not yet available or widely adopted.

Launching the entrepreneurial venture

“I realized there was a real gap to be filled, having experienced the issue firsthand, so I began searching on LinkedIn for engineers who could help me develop my project,” recalls Joule’s CEO.

After an extensive phase of study and research, during which she conducted over 200 exploratory interviews, the young founder from Padua met two young engineers. In November 2021, she officially launched the entrepreneurial venture

How Joule’s technology works

Joule’s core technology, developed in-house and patented, is revolutionary: a 40-second video analyzed by Joule Artificial Intelligence (JAI), powered by a proprietary algorithm.

The candidate, using the dedicated app available for Android and iOS- called “Joule for Talents”-records a short self-introduction. The startup’s algorithm simultaneously evaluates verbal aspects (lexicon, words, concepts), paraverbal ones (tone of voice, rhythm, pauses), and non-verbal signals (gestures, movements, posture, facial expressions, eye contact).

“We combine all this information using our multimodal models, which we trained with the help of 22 psychologists from Italy and abroad, and thanks to the contribution of the University of Padua, which collaborated with us,” explains Sposato.

The importance of soft skills

This allows Joule to identify candidates’ attitudes, soft skills, and personality traits, as well as the professional fields where they are most likely to thrive. This enables the startup to offer opportunities aligned both with candidates’ technical experience and their transversal competencies.

Available options for client companies: video analysis, recruiting automation, and assessment

Client companies, through a dedicated platform, can choose whether to rely solely on video analysis or activate full automation of the recruiting process: from AI-generated job descriptions to the evaluation of hard skills through structured questions or gamified tasks, all the way to the final shortlist of candidates to be interviewed. Furthermore, thanks to its flexibility, Joule’s innovative solution can also be used for internal assessments.

The reliability of Joule’s innovation

The system integrates seamlessly with major Applicant Tracking Systems, reducing screening time and providing objective data that enable faster decision-making. With an 86% accuracy rate measured by comparing algorithm outputs with evaluations by external psychologists, Joule significantly outperforms traditional interviews, which average around 60%.

Joule’s business growth

Early feedback: MVP, investors, and the market

Joule’s business, targeting both companies and candidates, received positive feedback right from the start. “After developing the first MVP of our algorithm,” says Sposato, “we raised a pre-seed investment of over one million euros from nine business angels active in the HR world, who saw the potential of both the idea and the product.”

Operational results

In its first two years, the Padua-based startup focused on research and development, entering the market in 2023. In its first year of operations, Joule generated 97.000 euros in revenue, followed by a 400% increase in 2024, bringing the total to over 400.000 euros. These results were achieved thanks to more than 200 client companies from industries ranging from finance to tech.

Challenges on the growth path

“The market is responding very positively,” Sposato emphasizes. “We are at the beginning of a long journey which, on the one hand, is rewarding and exciting, but on the other hand is also very challenging because our product is extremely innovative and, at times, perceived as too innovative.”

Team structure and its importance

To consolidate its position and overcome such challenges, Joule is structured into five teams (AI & machine learning, backend/frontend development, design, marketing, and sales), with a total of 15 dedicated professionals. The startup is ambitiously eyeing international markets: in addition to its already diverse Italian clientele, Joule has, over the past two years, also attracted U.S. and European companies that have tested - and subsequently adopted - an innovative, fast, and data-driven recruitment model.

The role of Intesa Sanpaolo in Joule’s growth

Participation in Up2Stars and the importance of networking

As part of its growth journey, Joule took part in the Up2Stars acceleration program, created through the collaboration between Intesa Sanpaolo and Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center, with the support of the innovation platform Gellify.

“An experience that, in addition to the valuable training path offered which allowed us to delve into various key topics, was especially important for the network it opened up to us. It enabled us to create high-level connections that proved particularly useful for the growth of our business,” emphasizes Sposato.

The Silicon Valley experience

Following Up2Stars, the promising startup from Padua had the opportunity in September 2024 to travel to Silicon Valley, thanks to a special acceleration program organized by Intesa Sanpaolo in collaboration with INNOVIT (Italian Innovation and Culture Hub) and Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center. This initiative was designed to promote the excellence of Italian innovation within the world’s most dynamic and competitive innovation ecosystem.

“Going to Silicon Valley allowed us to engage with an extremely selective ecosystem, characterized by an entirely different approach to risk and investment compared to Italy. In the heart of innovation, there is a real opportunity to try to develop bold ideas, while in Italy this often doesn’t happen,” says Joule’s CEO.

“Moreover,” she continues, “the collaboration with the Intesa Sanpaolo Group and the Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center enabled us to put concrete actions in place to help develop our business.”

Goals for the future

Looking ahead, the intention is to continue growing with a product that is increasingly high-performing and feature-rich, thanks to the internal development of new and compelling functionalities, also with the aim of strengthening the Padua-based startup’s presence in both the Italian and U.S. markets.

The stated goal is to make Joule the go-to reference for companies looking to optimize both their recruitment and internal assessment processes. “We want to become the market standard, that is, the solution that clients recognize and use when they need to conduct personnel searches or internal evaluations of their employees, and that people rely on to understand what to do and which career path to pursue professionally.” concludes Laura Sposato.