The Rézme Update: Q2 '25

Another exciting quarter helping business and government make Fair Chance Hiring a reality.

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Jodi Anderson Jr. & Ryan Brennan
July 24, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

📍 San Diego Launch

On July 1, San Diego County began enforcing its new Fair Chance Ordinance — and Rézme launched a dedicated self-service portal to help local employers and jobseekers comply. This marks our first deployment not embedded in an HRIS, so we’ve taken the opportunity to test and refine features with users in the field.

Jodi and I are personally walking into businesses across the unincorporated parts of the county, many of whom are just now learning about the requirements and the risk of non-compliance. Reactions have been strong: employers are glad someone is showing up with a real solution.

On the jobseeker side, we’ve partnered with the County’s reentry services to help candidates create compliant records and engage employers through the platform. You can explore both sides of the tool at candidate.rezme.app and employer.rezme.app.

We’re also kicking off a research partnership with UC Riverside’s Presley Center to study how software can improve compliance outcomes. The research team is working directly with the Office of Labor Standards & Enforcement, and their findings will help shape future enforcement and employer education. More to come as the project progresses.

🎤 Recent Appearances

SCBC Spotlight (4/29)

Presented a live demo of our product during SCBC’s online member spotlight event. This followed our in-person session earlier in the month and helped initiate direct sales conversations with member employers.

RBIJ Workforce & Justice Summit (5/13-14)

Ryan and Jodi joined the policy roundtable in Seattle, with Jodi also featured on the "Quick Fire Round" panel. We emphasized that Fair Chance Hiring is operational today — and began several promising sales discussions.

Amplitude AI Agent Launch (6/10)

Rézme was selected as a beta partner for Amplitude’s new AI Agents product. We participated in their official launch event showcasing early use cases. See Amplitude’s post.

💸 Closing The Round

We’re in the final stages of closing our pre-seed round. Decarceration Fund has committed, along with a group of angels including Jennifer Carolan. If you or someone in your network is exploring aligned investments, we’d love to talk — reach out to [email protected]. We’re targeting $1M. The round supports deepening our product footprint, converting pilot users, and scaling our San Diego-style enforcement-partnership model to other cities.

💼 Milken Penn Business Plan Competition

In parallel, Rézme was named a semi-finalist in the 2025 Milken-Penn GSE Education Business Plan Competition, one of the most selective pitch competitions for ventures in the social impact and workforce space. We’re grateful to John Gamba and Rita Ferrandino for their ongoing mentorship throughout the process.

💫 Team Updates: New Hires + New Advisors

We’ve added key talent across engineering, outreach, and strategy:

  • Olayinka Adekola has joined as Founding Engineer (Security & Backend). Olayinka recently completed his Stanford CS MA and brings deep expertise in cybersecurity and backend architecture.

  • Jenny Chen joins us as a Founding Engineer focused on AI and full-stack development. She’s currently completing her MA at Stanford with research in applied machine learning.

  • Alexis Devine is our new Healthcare Specialist, bringing over two decades of experience in healthcare HR and a strong track record of placing opportunity talent into full-time roles.

We’ve also formed an advisory board to guide the company’s next phase of growth:

  • Anderson Sloan currently leads strategic accounts at Delinea, following senior sales roles at Salesforce and Tableau. He previously taught alongside Ryan in Mississippi — a shared experience that fuels his commitment to fair chance hiring.

  • Brennan Decker is a product executive with a strong track record across loyalty, fraud prevention, personalization, and trust at scale. His expertise will be instrumental as we expand our product roadmap and compliance integrations.

We’ll have one more exciting addition to the core team — a third member with founding and executive experience — at the end of the summer. More on that in the next update.

We're Hiring: Marketing Intern

We're looking for a Marketing Intern to amplify our message across channels. This is a hands-on role ideal for someone with experience posting on LinkedIn, coordinating announcements, and helping drive visibility for a mission-driven tech product. If you or someone you know is a fit, reach out to [email protected].

🚀 What’s Coming in Q3

📍 City of Chicago: We’re in formal discussions with the Mayor’s Office of Reentry and currently gathering data from our SD launch to support the efficacy of our efforts. The scope of the opportunity could mirror San Diego’s enforcement support model, enabling Rézme to help the city implement and scale individualized assessment compliance.

📍 City of Los Angeles: Jodi represented Rézme at the Fair Chance Hiring Networking Reception & Training on July 16 at USC, where he appeared on a panel with LA County’s Department of Economic Opportunity and Impact Justice. The event was co-hosted by the Center for Employment Opportunities and will be part of our broader partnership development efforts in LA.

🔗 ServiceNow Integration: In June, we were accepted into the ServiceNow Partner Program and are now building toward a certified integration for the ServiceNow Marketplace. We’re targeting a Q4 launch and expect this to unlock new enterprise deployment pathways.

📄 Occupational Licensing: We’re working with state governments and hiring organizations that face licensing-related hiring restrictions. Our goal is to reduce delays and increase transparency for justice-impacted jobseekers navigating this barrier. Special thanks to Nan Gibson at JPMorgan PolicyCenter for her support as we explore solutions.

Q3 Pilot Program

We’re launching new self-service pilots with employers from our sales pipeline, giving HR teams hands-on experience using Rézme to resolve real flagged background checks. These are not sandbox simulations: participants run live cases using their own data and workflows. The goal is to validate compliance outcomes and assess readiness for broader deployment. If you know an organization that fits — 250+ employees, conducts background checks, and has flagged candidates — have them reach out to [email protected] to learn more.

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