How the Azerbaijani startup Hirpo helps companies automate HR with AI

Today, Hirpo combines recruitment, employee training and development, and HR tools in a single platform. Read more about the startup’s journey, its development, and plans to enter Central Asian markets.

Mubariz Shahbazli, City — Baku, co-founder, CEO, LinkedIn

How it all started

My journey with Hirpo is based not just on a single idea, but on over a decade of practical experience in human resources management. Working with large corporate groups and leading strategic HR transformation projects, I clearly identified one of the key market problems: the main barrier for modern HR is not the lack of software solutions, but the complexity of building effective HR processes, long implementation times, and the high cost of consulting, which growing companies often cannot afford.

Later, my experience studying for an MBA program in Israel strengthened this understanding. It inspired me to rethink how artificial intelligence could make strategic HR more accessible. I realized that we did not need to create another administrative HR tool. Instead, we needed to build a platform that would help companies implement modern HR practices faster, more affordably, and with less dependence on traditional consulting. This idea became the foundation of Hirpo.

Startup launch

Initially, we launched a product focused on employee performance management. However, it quickly became clear that HR tasks are closely interconnected: it is impossible to effectively manage performance without paying attention to employee training, feedback, and career development.

Customer feedback became the main driver for further product development. Today, Hirpo has evolved from a solution with a single key feature into an AI-powered platform for managing HR processes. It unifies recruitment, a learning management system, performance management, employee career development, internal surveys, and AI assistants for HR into a single ecosystem.

When forming the team, we brought together strong IT specialists and experienced HR experts. In the early stages, this collaboration became our main advantage: we were able to transform years of practical HR consulting experience into convenient, automated digital processes.

Target audience

Hirpo is designed for small and medium-sized businesses, growing companies, and large enterprises that want to transition to modern human resources management without high consulting costs and complex implementation.

Today, Hirpo actively supports organizations in both the private and public sectors, serving thousands of employees through its platform.

Instead of separate and fragmented tools, we offer a unified operating system. To lower the barrier to entry, we provide basic learning management system (LMS) capabilities completely free of charge, allowing companies to easily start working with the platform. Our monetization strategy includes three growth stages:

Stage 1. 0–6 months — achieving an ARR of $20,000–$30,000 by building a base of initial clients.

Stage 2. 6–12 months — growing ARR to $90,000–$150,000 through deeper market penetration.

Stage 3. 12–18 months — reaching an ARR of $1 million as we scale our fully autonomous ecosystem.

Incubation programs

Before launching Hirpo, I managed the UNEC startup incubator for three years, where I helped young projects develop. But my perspective on business growth truly changed during my MBA studies at Tel Aviv University.

In Israel, one of the leading startup ecosystems in the world, I saw how modern technologies and sound business approaches help companies grow rapidly and enter new markets. This experience laid the foundation for how Hirpo develops today.

Using this knowledge, we actively participated in competitive international programs. One of our key achievements was participation in the prestigious EBRD Star Venture program, aimed at supporting promising startups with the potential for rapid international scaling.

Beyond access to international mentoring and business consulting, the program provided us with a grant of €50,000, which helped accelerate product development.

Today, Hirpo is funded through a combination of own funds, business angel investments, and non-dilutive financing, including the EBRD grant. This funding model allows us to maintain flexibility and focus entirely on creating an AI ecosystem.

Challenges

The main challenge in the HRTech space is overcoming companies’ fatigue from having too many software solutions. HR departments face the need to manage five different platforms that do not interact with each other. We solved this problem by positioning Hirpo not as another tool requiring management, but as a unified operating model that replaces chaos with effective interaction.

One lesson that has remained unchanged throughout my years in HR: technology alone does not create strong organizations. True value emerges when technology is combined with human expertise.

My advice for early-stage startup founders: do not create technology in isolation from real needs. Tie product development to practical experience and an understanding of processes. If you are building a B2B SaaS product, it must solve real business tasks and eliminate customer pain points, rather than simply digitizing manual processes.

Achievements

Development into a full ecosystem. We successfully transformed Hirpo from a standalone employee performance management tool into a comprehensive AI-based HR operating system that unites all key HR processes.

Wide adoption. Our platform is used by organizations in both the private and public sectors; today, thousands of employees work through it.

High value of consulting and solutions. Large corporate groups such as Azerconnect Group trust us to develop and implement leadership and career growth programs, including an individual AI leadership simulator.

Innovative AI architecture. We created a unique model that combines agentic artificial intelligence, human expertise, and HR technologies to automate complex processes and replace expensive traditional consulting solutions.

Plans

By the end of the year, we plan to strengthen our current growth phase and reach an ARR of $90,000–$150,000, while actively preparing for regional expansion.

From a product perspective, we continue to develop Hirpo around our hybrid model, combining Agentic AI and human expertise. Our AI agents help companies automate complex workflows, create personalized HR processes, and quickly obtain expert recommendations. Meanwhile, experienced HR specialists retain a key role in strategic management and decision-making where human experience is essential.

Geographically, we intend to take this approach beyond Azerbaijan and begin development in Central Asia, primarily in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. We believe that the future of HR lies not in replacing specialists with artificial intelligence, but in giving every growing company access to intelligent systems and expert knowledge that help make better decisions, build effective HR practices, and ensure sustainable growth.