Boston-based Filtered.ai has raised a $7 million round to accelerate its engineering and developer-focused hiring service.

The startup was born back in 2016. Paul Bilodeau, the Founder, and CEO worked on it as an internal project while working with a consultancy group. Later it split from the group in 2019, signing a term sheet to raise capital in March of 2020.  

Filtered helps businesses overcome tech hiring challenges and assess candidates' true fit for the job, team, and company through capabilities-based hiring.  The product is used by Startup Unicorns and Fortune 500 companies, according to the company.

The timing of Filtered’s anticipated venture capital round and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic were timed close to each other.

Bilodeau told TechCrunch in an interview that his startup effectively raised capital on a drip basis throughout 2020, until it finally closed its round in the fourth quarter of the year. That timing was somewhat fortuitous for its investors — Silicon Valley Data Capital and the AI Fund — as Filtered’s CEO said that that was the company’s best quarter in its history.