Sixley Secures £46.6k Pre-Seed Funding to Automate Employee Referrals with AI

London based HR tech startup Sixley Ltd has raised £46.6k in a pre-seed funding round. The investment values the company at an estimated £4.1m post-money.

Incorporated in July 2017, Sixley provides an artificial intelligence powered recruitment platform designed to automate the sourcing, management, and rewarding of candidate referrals. The company targets a broad market, serving businesses ranging from small startups to large multinational corporations. Its software facilitates hiring across both white collar and blue collar positions. Currently, the London headquartered company operates with a lean team of three employees.

Employee referrals are traditionally a manual and time consuming process for human resources departments. Sixley addresses this bottleneck by leveraging artificial intelligence to streamline the entire referral lifecycle. By tapping into the professional networks of existing employees, the platform helps organisations source vetted candidates more efficiently. It also automates the tracking and reward mechanisms that incentivise staff participation, removing the administrative friction that often prevents companies from scaling their internal referral programmes.

The pre-seed round saw shares allotted on 12 February 2026, with the regulatory filing completed today, 10 March 2026. The transaction brings £46.6k of fresh capital into the business. While the round size is relatively modest, the £4.1m post-money valuation indicates investor confidence in the underlying technology and its market potential. As a pre-seed injection, this capital will support the continued development of the platform's automation features.

The investment in Sixley aligns with a broader surge of capital into the UK recruitment technology sector. Recent industry data highlights that global funding for HR technology saw a 20% year over year increase through the latter half of 2025. Artificial intelligence has transitioned from an experimental feature to core infrastructure within talent acquisition. Research indicates that 65% of recruiters now incorporate artificial intelligence into their daily workflows, and two thirds of talent acquisition leaders plan to increase their technology spending throughout 2026.

Within the UK market, data from BDO highlights that recruitment tech remains the most active sub-sector of the recruitment market in terms of deal activity. This is driven by a continued trend towards digitisation and automation. With 70% of recruiters reporting increased hiring volumes year over year, the demand for scalable sourcing tools is accelerating. Companies are increasingly seeking automated solutions to reduce hiring times and lower acquisition costs, creating a favourable environment for platforms like Sixley that can improve the efficiency of candidate sourcing.