Manu Vanderveeren

Manu Vanderveeren is the Co-Founder and COO of Spott, an AI-native ATS/CRM platform for recruitment agencies. He co-founded Spott in 2024 with Lander Degreve and Samuel Smeys, driven by their collective experience witnessing inefficiencies in recruitment software during their consulting careers. Under his leadership, Spott aims to redefine recruitment by automating core workflows, such as candidate reporting, matching, outreach, and scheduling, helping recruiters focus on high-value interactions. Spott successfully completed the Y Combinator Winter 2025 batch and secured $3.2 million in seed funding. ycombinator+6

Manu's expertise in strategy and technology stems from his background as a Consultant at McKinsey & Company (2022-2024), where he worked on strategy, tech due diligence, and HR projects. This experience provided him with firsthand insight into the pain points within the recruitment industry's software landscape, which he and his co-founders are now addressing with Spott's AI-driven solution. linkedin+3

Manu also possesses a strong financial background, with previous experience as a Private Equity Off-Cycle Analyst at CVC Capital Partners (Nov-Dec 2021) and an Investment Banking Summer Analyst at Morgan Stanley (Jul-Sep 2020). He holds a Master's degree in Financial Analysis from London Business School, demonstrating a solid foundation in finance that complements his entrepreneurial and consulting endeavors. ycombinator+1

Manu is actively involved in the discussion and adoption of AI in the recruitment space. He believes that while AI agents can automate many tasks, human oversight remains crucial, especially in the near future. He envisions a future where recruiters review AI-generated work and focus on building relationships, rather than being bogged down by manual data entry and fragmented tools. linkedin