Mappa is a transformative new AI-driven behavioral intelligence platform. It plans to demonstrate its powerful, transformative technology at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 in San Francisco. In 2023, Sarah Lucena joined forces with co-founders, Pablo Bergolo and Daniel Moretti, to start Mappa. Their mission is to transform the global hiring experience by eliminating the uncertainty from hiring the best-fit talent.
That innovation has led the platform to tremendous adoption, now with more than 130 customer agencies using it across the United States. Mappa’s annualized recurring revenue is over $4 million, a sign that cities around the world are in strong demand for Mappa’s products and services. The company completed a $3.4 million seed funding round led by REALITY in a recent financial close. This round was led by popular investor Tim Draper, and his firm, Draper Associates. Most significantly, Draper himself hires Mappa to assess potential founders to invest in.
Mappa’s approach is to better understand individual traits using advanced AI analytics. “Mappa comes to the market with the goal of really, truly understanding people,” said Sarah Lucena. Getting a clearer picture of this nonprofit sector helps organizations hire more intentionally and creates a more equitable hiring process.
The platform can take each trait and discuss why it is not simply good or bad. It assesses the degree of match for candidates against defined job competencies. “We don’t really categorize traits as good or bad. We understand traits as compatible or not,” Lucena explained. This new, nuanced view is intended to dramatically increase the quality of hires.
In addition to its more traditional job recruitment applications, Mappa has shown its utility as a community mobilization tool. For example, the online learning platform Re-Skilling.ai has used Mappa’s data to determine which skills students are most able to improve. This further emphasizes Mappa’s seamless adaptability across industries, particularly in education and finance.
One of Mappa’s most impressive metrics is their employee turnover rate, which is a stunningly low 2%. The usual yearly churn rate for firms usually peaks at 30%. This figure highlights Mappa’s success in placing candidates into the right roles — both for the candidates and employers — leading to more sustainable employment connections.
Mappa is an ongoing, always-evolving project. Lucena sees a day when his company moves beyond designing services to becoming a key infrastructure player themselves. She notes that Mappa’s technology could potentially extend to help financial institutions approve loan candidates lacking extensive credit histories, further broadening its impact across industries.
With its participation in the Startup Battlefield Top 20 at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, Mappa is positioning itself as a leader in the AI-driven hiring landscape. The company’s pedagogic approach strengthens the hiring process. In the process, it helps create a more inclusive and equitable workforce.