Riviera Partners acquires AI startup recruiter Lateral Labs as the talent war reshapes executive search

https://media.thenextweb.com/2026/06/riviera-partners-acquires-lateral-labs-ai-recruiting.avif

TL;DR

Riviera Partners is acquiring Lateral Labs, an AI startup recruiter founded by an ex-OpenAI recruiter, to expand its AI and ML talent search capabilities.

Riviera Partners, the Insight Partners-backed executive search firm that has placed technology leaders at companies including Uber, Snowflake, Figma, and Discord, is acquiring Lateral Labs, a recruiting firm that specialises in hiring for AI startups. The deal brings Lateral Labs’ client roster, which includes Cursor, ElevenLabs, Runway, Scale AI, and Luma Labs, under the umbrella of one of the largest tech-focused search firms in the industry.

Lateral Labs was founded in 2024 by Rob Infantino, who previously worked as a recruiter at OpenAI and Amazon Web Services. The firm offers embedded, retained, and contingent search for machine learning and AI research roles, positioning itself as a specialist that understands the technical profiles AI companies need. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

The acquisition...

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