Find Newly Funded Companies About to Hire

Overview

Companies raise money to hire. The round closes, and within weeks a hiring plan turns into a dozen open reqs — but the window that matters is before those reqs go live, while the plan is still being written and no agency has been engaged. Reaching a funded company after the jobs post means competing with every other recruiter reading the same board. Reaching them the week the round closes means being early.

This Hound watches funding announcements across your markets, filters for the raises that mean hiring in your specialty, finds the founder or People lead, and opens the conversation before the reqs exist.

How to set it up

Four things to brief your Hound. This is the exact configuration behind this play.

A · Describe the opportunity

This is the brief every source is filtered against. You describe what you're looking for in plain language, add keywords to sharpen it, then set the structured criteria.

Tell Forest what you're looking for:

"I'm looking for companies that just raised funding, because a raise is a hiring plan with a budget attached — and I want them before the job posts go live and every other agency shows up. Prioritize seed through Series B companies without an internal recruiting team, in industries where I place talent. Match to my specialty functions and markets. Skip companies with a large in-house TA org and rounds too small to fund meaningful hiring."

Keywords to watch for: raises · Series A · Series B · seed round · closes funding · plans to hire · will use funding to grow the team · doubling headcount · [your specialty] · [your metro area]

Fields to extract: company · round_stage · amount_raised · announced_date · lead_investor · headquarters · industry · headcount

Match criteria:

• ✓ Round stage where hiring follows fast (Seed–Series B)

• ✓ Amount raised ≥ threshold to fund real headcount

• ✓ Industry and market where you place

• ✗ Exclude companies with a large internal TA function

B · Choose the sources to monitor

Funding data comes through Forest's built-in data partner, backed by the free SEC filing that often lands before the press release — your earliest possible signal.

Funding data (built in — no setup) 🔌

• Crustdata (via Forest) — Funding rounds, investors, headcount, and headcount growth rate. Primary feed; nothing to connect.

• SEC Form D — sec.gov/edgar — Private-placement filings, frequently filed before the announcement. Free — and being days early here is the whole edge.

Public job boards 🟡 — Forest also watches for the moment reqs actually appear, so you can follow up with specificity if the first touch didn't land.

News & Press 🟡 default source, always on — reads the open web against your brief for round announcements and "using the funding to grow the team" language that tells you exactly what they'll hire.

C · Define the ICP to reach

Who to reach at the funded company, in priority order, with fallbacks.

1. Founder / CEO — Primary at early stage — owns the hiring plan — PRIMARY

2. Head of People / Talent — Primary once the function exists

3. Hiring Manager for your function — Fallback, and often the fastest yes — FALLBACK

D · Email & LinkedIn sequence

The play the Hound runs for each match. Fields drop in as variables.

Email · Day 0 Congrats on the {{round_stage}} at {{company}}. If it's like most raises, hiring is about to become the bottleneck — and the roles you need are usually the hardest ones to fill. We place {{function}} talent for companies at exactly this stage and can start before the reqs are even written. Worth a quick call while you're planning?

↓ Wait 2 days · no reply

LinkedIn · connection request · Day 2 Hi {{first_name}} — congrats on the raise at {{company}}. Would love to connect.

↓ Wait 3 days · no reply

Email · Day 5 · follow-up Following up on {{company}}'s {{round_stage}} — happy to share what comparable {{industry}} teams hired first after their round, and who's available right now. No obligation, no fee unless you hire.

⏸ Any reply on either channel pauses the whole sequence — the conversation is yours.