Ringtime, the AI agent that orchestrates inbound and outbound conversations, has raised €1.8 million in a seed round led by Volta Ventures. The Ghent-based startup will use the capital to expand its product team and step up its marketing efforts, while developing new features specifically aimed at blue-collar recruitment.
Europe is facing a structural shortage of physical workers. In retail, logistics and hospitality alone, hundreds of thousands of positions sit vacant across the continent. Paradoxically, while the AI revolution is reducing demand for certain profiles, the shortage of manual workers is only getting worse. And the problem often starts at a deceptively simple point: reaching them.
Blue-collar recruiters currently call hundreds of candidates a day, leave voicemails and run through the same screening questions on repeat. Workers and operators rarely use conventional channels like email, LinkedIn or a CV. They also speak a wide range of languages. Yet the tools recruiters use to reach them have never kept pace: they're still built for a world of permanent contracts, office hours and polished job applications.
"The labour market for technical profiles is constantly shifting," says Vincent Theeten, CEO of Ringtime. "Today someone works in warehouse logistics, tomorrow in food processing, next month as a driver. Existing hiring tools are built for people with one job at one employer. Reaching them is one of the biggest challenges recruiters face. If an electrician applies on Monday and hears nothing by Tuesday, he's working somewhere else by Wednesday."
The right job
That observation is where Ringtime began. The AI agent automates candidate recruitment end to end. It determines which steps are needed to fill a vacancy quickly and accurately: the candidate's preferred communication channel, the right language out of 22 options, and the best moment to make contact. An orchestration layer that converses, screens and matches throughout the entire process.
"Ringtime is evolving into a complete, intelligent solution for connecting technical candidates to the right job across sectors, languages and geographies," says Diederik Syoen, co-founder of Ringtime. "We're building the infrastructure that brings supply and demand together faster than the market can do on its own."
Ringtime was founded in September 2025 by Cheqroom founder Vincent Theeten, ERA and Alfabet executive Johan Krijgsman, Michiel Vanhaverbeke and Diederik Syoen. The startup currently generates €400,000 in annual revenue with clients including Trixxo Jobs, Synergie Jobs and House of HR. Beyond recruitment, Ringtime is also active in real estate and technical installations, sectors where contact volumes are high and time pressure is constant.
"Ringtime manages property viewings for ERA. Outside office hours and on weekends, interested buyers can now book a visit automatically, without any agent involvement. Several properties have already been sold with Ringtime handling the scheduling entirely. The efficiency gains are significant: properties sell faster and the human bottleneck disappears," says Johan Krijgsman, co-founder of Ringtime.
To fuel that growth, Ringtime has raised €1.8 million in a round led by Ghent-based VC firm Volta Ventures, with Syndicate One, JK Invest, New School VC and Allusion also participating. The capital will go towards expanding the team, scaling up marketing and deepening the company's footprint in the recruitment sector.
"The interest from clients and prospects shows that the market is ready to embrace voice technology and agentic AI. We're deliberately building an AI-first company, with efficiency and scale at the centre. Over time, we want to expand into the Netherlands, the UK and Germany, where businesses are running into the same challenges," concludes Vincent Theeten.