The rate of youth unemployment is on the rise and more applicants are making use of AI to create their resumes, making the process of hiring entry-level the job seeker and the employer. Manchester startup urfuture is looking to tackle this issue by introducing new tools for hiring.
The company recently announced that it has raised PS1.7 million of seed funds that was which was led by River Capital. Other investors involved in this round are Syndicate Room Access Fund, Manchester Angels, Fhunded, Solid Bond, Host Capital, as well as a number of angel investors who are that are focused on this sector.
Urfuture was created around 2023, in 2023 by Tom Keighley, Jayel Williams and Holly Hobbs. Urfuture is developing new hiring tools that can replace traditional CVs. The platform is based on the social-first method aimed at Gen Z and the unique behavioural science matching algorithm to identify interested candidates and assist employers decrease the chance of bias.
According to ONS According to ONS, 957,000 UK residents between the ages of 16 and 24 weren’t in school or employment in the last quarter of 2025. That’s 12.8 percent of the age category. A majority of job seekers utilize AI tools to create or modify CVs and resumes, which leads to a number of poor-quality, repetitive applications for employers.
“Urfuture is uniquely placed to bridge this gap by offering a flexible and engaging solution that allows young people to look into the entry-level positions, apprenticeships and more long-term career paths,” notes David Walters the Investment Director for River Capital.
Since its introduction in late 2025 the app has been downloaded more than fifty thousand times and has racked up around 160 million visits on Facebook. It has collected 2.4 million behavioral data points to enhance the matching algorithm, which makes it among the fastest growing data sets for entry-level employment across the UK.
Businesses like Tesco, British Airways, West Midlands Police, and Scottish Power Electricity North West utilize the platform to search for and assess the talent of young professionals. Initial results show significant improvements in the diversity of candidates. One employer noticed the diversity of candidates increase from 8 to 47 percent.
“We’re building the system from scratch that combine social distribution, behavioral science, and AI to make a fairer, more efficient method of bringing youngsters to jobs. Our goal is to be the first step to work for the upcoming generation of workers,” Keighley says.
Urfuture has also collaborated with the Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the Chancellor Rachel Reeves, and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. Together, they’ve launched campaigns that target young people in large numbers through urfuture’s social media presence and the Gen Z audience.
The funding increase will to accelerate the development of products, such as the release of a white label screener and behavioural profiler to help reduce manual screening for employers.
The company is also planning to expand its marketing, sales and engineering teams, and offer a self-service service for medium and small-sized businesses which will make the platform available to a wider range of enterprises.