The winner of the fiercely contested UNLEASH Startup Award, the longest-running award for HR technology startups, has been decided for 2025!

Five startups took to the stage to present their pitch to the judging panel and faced questions from the crowd in a bid to join the illustrious ranks of former winners, which includes Peakon (now part of Workday), Oneteam, Talent Alpha, Clustree, TandemHR, Hour One, and last year’s champion, Manifest.

This year the expert judging panel also recognized a runner-up – verified digital identity solution, Trua.

But, as always, there could only be one winner and in Las Vegas this year, that honor went to HireBrain, a hiring enablement platform driving collaboration between managers and recruiters.

US-based HireBrain wowed the judges with its pitch, delivered by Founder and CEO, David Nason, who was presented with the grand prize of $50,000 worth of future sponsorship opportunity with UNLEASH, by Founder and CEO Marc Coleman, and Head of Startup, Kennedy Cook.

Speaking to UNLEASH in the aftermath of their victory, Nason said: “Our AI is built to be augmented, and to up-level and amplify human potential, not put people out of work. We stand in the face of others who think of a dystopian reality.

“The reception that we’ve gotten from actual human beings, users inside of our customers, over the last six to nine months has really blown up.

To see that recognized by industry experts, judges, the field, I couldn’t feel any more appreciative and humbled and proud of the work the team has done.”

A huge congratulations to HireBrain and, of course, all of the finalists this year – Handover, Kinfolk, Trua and Vizzy.