One night, Oluwapelumi Dada, David Alade, and Daniel Ajayi got an email from David Lieb, the man behind Google Photos and a General Partner at Y Combinator (YC). Lieb requested a call with Dada and his co-founders.
On the call, he informed them that they had just been accepted into YC for their startup, Sorce.
Dada and his co-founders were ecstatic. They had applied for YC after the deadline and got in shortly after submitting their application.
The truth is, their acceptance was not a complete surprise. Their startup, Sorce, which initially launched as Swype in August 2024, had already gone viral on social media and attracted users from nearly every country in the world — except North Korea and three others.
On a call with Techpoint Africa, Dada described Sorce as Tinder for jobs. It is a platform that allows people to apply for jobs by simply swiping.
“When you’re applying for multiple jobs, inputting the same information over and over is stressful, and people hate it. Sorce makes it so simple — you just swipe right, and AI helps you apply for the job,” he said.
The solution took Dada and his co-founders just seven weeks to build. When they launched officially in August 2024, it became an instant hit. The product now has almost 500,000 users who have swiped over 20 million times.
He joins the likes of Obinna Chimdi, Saheed Azeez, and Abiodun Adetona in building AI platforms that inspire and provide solutions not just for Africa, but for the world.
Building Sorce
Underneath Sorce’s playful “swipe-to-apply” interface is sophisticated AI. The company uses existing AI infrastructure to comb through job listings on company websites and apply on behalf of users.
When users create a profile, Sorce analyses their skills, job history, and preferences, then automatically matches them with companies looking for similar talent.
Dada built the first version of what is now Sorce and called it One Click Apply. It had the same premise as the current version, but it was not fully developed.
Even that early version was enough to catch the attention of Sam Parr — serial entrepreneur, investor, and founder of The Hustle, which was later acquired by HubSpot.
Parr made an X post about his meeting with Dada, which had 1.7 million views. He described how Dada, who had just completed an internship at Tesla, landed another at Dell, and still made time to race to meet him.
Dada told Parr he wanted to work on his app instead of doing another internship, but could not afford to.
According to Parr, “These attributes — willingness to chase me down to show me this, already making cool products — are what future ballers look like when young.”
He called on people to work with and fund Dada.
Founders Inc. was the first to write a cheque to help Dada chase his dream.
A cracked team
Dada built the first iteration of Sorce, but he needed a team to turn it into a product that could compete with the biggest job platforms in the world, such as Indeed and LinkedIn.
He didn’t just want a team — he wanted people with the same drive and motivation he had. His first catch was Ajayi, who built the AI agent infrastructure that Sorce uses.
“I just knew I wanted to work with this guy,” he recalled.
Ajayi is Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)-trained and, like Dada, has interned at major tech companies such as Nvidia. “He had a very peculiar profile,” Dada said. “He has this website of very fun projects, and interestingly, he raps too. I was like, I really need to talk to this guy.”
That was two years ago. Today, they are not just co-founders but also good friends. Alade, the third co-founder, is also a close friend of Dada and Ajayi. Dada described him as a whiz at developing iOS apps.
The pair met on X (formerly Twitter) and decided to meet in person. Seven weeks later, Sorce was ready to launch. Their X post announcing the launch in August 2024 got 1.5 million views.
Sorce has done well since then. Beyond the 20 million swipes — which Dada said are mostly left swipes (nos) — and almost half a million users, he is especially proud of the calibre of companies that have hired through the platform.
Dada shared with Techpoint Africa a list of over 150 companies where people have gotten interview offers through Sorce, including OpenAI, Mitsubishi, Nvidia, Coca-Cola, Visa, and Samsung.
The efforts of the three co-founders have paid off, but they also had some extra help. The Sorce team now consists of six people, which Dada described as “a cracked team.”
Interestingly, one of those team members joined through Sorce itself.
“Matthew Trent came to intern with us from Canada, and he rebuilt our search,” Dada explained. “Now, we don’t just search for the words; we also take in the meaning. For example, if you search for someone who talks to people and writes stories, you’ll see journalist-related roles.
“It’s not enough to search against just the word itself. We compute every single job — millions of them — and understand their meaning. Matthew built that, and that doubled our engagement in swiping.”
Making money is a challenge
Sorce has recorded impressive growth, gotten into YC, and caught the attention of many people. But like some of the world’s biggest AI companies, generating revenue hasn’t been straightforward.
The initial business model was similar to Tinder’s: users paid to see jobs they could swipe on. However, Dada said they decided to stop this and make the platform completely free.
“We realised we were too focused on making money early on,” Dada said. “At some point, we decided to pause monetisation and just focus on growing the user base. The more people we have, the more value companies get — and that’s what will make Sorce sustainable.”
This was also the reason they paused their second business model — a recruitment service that helped companies find talent and charged a 15% commission on the employee’s annual salary.
“We paused the employer programme because to really get people hired, you need a large user base,” Dada explained. “At the time, we only had about half a million users, so we decided to focus on growing that number. Employers will always use your product if you have enough people.”
While these business models have been paused, they were not without results. According to Dada, the company earned a good amount of money from them. Another member of the team, Ben Ancheta, championed the employer programme and was on track to bring in $250,000 in revenue before it ended.
Indeed and LinkedIn are still king
Dada’s dream is for Sorce to become the number one job platform in the world — a role currently dominated by industry giants such as Indeed, LinkedIn, and Monster.
Sorce is doing well, but it’s not there yet. LinkedIn, for instance, has 1.1 billion members globally, while Indeed attracts between 250 and 350 million unique visitors every month.
Still, Dada is confident his dream is achievable. In June this year, Sorce was ranked the fourth most popular job app in the US, an impressive feat for a one-year-old company. “The companies we’re going after are over 20 years old, and we’re ranking as well as them. It’s something we’re really proud of,” he said.
Dada isn’t just optimistic; he has a clear strategy. His plan is to borrow playbooks from some of the most successful apps in the world.
“Something Indeed has done really well is getting all the jobs in the world,” he explained. “We need to get all the jobs in the world, too, but our task is ten times harder.
Indeed is scraping all the jobs in the world, but the hard part is building an AI agent that can apply to all those jobs. There are so many kinds of jobs out there.”
The second part of his strategy is an obsession with product excellence, inspired by Duolingo. “They can A/B test the colour of a button,” Dada said. “I don’t use Duolingo, but I’m a huge fan of the product. It’s crazy how much work went into making it a $40 billion company.”
Marketing is another area Dada is bullish on. Fortunately, their lead iOS engineer, Ajayi, has also mastered the art of short-form content creation, helping the company grow to over 71,000 followers on Instagram.
Cracked cap table
Dada’s ambitious plan requires funding, and thankfully, Sorce already has strong backers. The company is supported by Founders Inc. and YC, along with angel investors such as Opeyemi Awoyemi, Co-founder of Jobberman. Dada joked about how “the man who built one of the biggest job boards in Africa is now investing in my job app.”
Adewale Yusuf, Founder of AltSchool Africa, is also an investor. While Dada did not disclose how much the company has raised so far, he mentioned that a funding round will soon be announced, which will reveal more details.
Sorce’s main appeal lies in how it cuts down the time required to apply for a job. However, this efficiency also raises questions about what it means for the overall job-hunting process and how companies can still ensure they’re hiring the best candidates.
Despite those concerns, Sorce’s potential — and the calibre of investors backing it — suggest that it’s a startup worth watching. Dada remains confident about the road ahead. “I came to the US five years ago for school,” he said, “and now I’m in YC.”
