After Sergi Bastardas’ decade at Amazon and floriculture startup Colvin, one thing always stood out: the feeling that there wasn’t enough effective “human infrastructure” to manage workers behind the scenes. He took this feeling and, in 2025, alongside his co-founders Nacho Travesí and Antonio Melé, launched Orbioan enterprise startup that helps businesses manage frontline workers — using AI agents, of course.
On Monday, the company announced a $21 million Series A round led by Dawn Capital. The startup says its clients already include Poke and YUM! Brands (owners of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC) to onboard and manage their frontline employees. Bastardas said customers progress from using Orbio as a pilot to fully deploying the software. As an example, he said that at behavioral health provider The Stepping Stones Group, Orbio now manages the company’s entire U.S. operations, with 20% more candidates successfully getting hired.
Orbio agents (Maria, Daniel and Claire) can interview candidates, assess their suitability, monitor employee performance and conduct daily check-ins throughout an employee’s professional life cycle. The goal is to help companies manage their workforce autonomously, Bastardas said, adding that companies will be able to engage and support frontline staff while delegating some labor operations to AI agents.
“Each agent generates data that feeds the others: onboarding signals inform the quality of hire; exit interviews reveal why employees are leaving, which recalibrates hiring criteria; engagement data identifies retention risks,” he continued.
Orbio competes with several startups, like Paradox, which helps automate recruiting, and WorkJam, which helps manage front-line employees.
Bastardas sees Orbio’s biggest competitor, however, as the traditional approach to how frontline workers are managed (particularly in industries like healthcare, retail and logistics) – a fragmented process that sometimes still involves spreadsheets and phone calls. But all this is changing rapidly in the age of AI. Orbio has raised $26 million in funding to date from investors including Visionaries and 2100 Ventures. Bastardas said the new capital would be used to hire and develop more AI agents.
“It will be [a] transformation for businesses, but also for the workforce,” Bastardas said. “The 2.7 billion people who make healthcare, retail, logistics and hospitality work, most of whom don’t have a company email address, previously had nothing. This is their AI moment.
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Dominic-Madori Davis is a senior venture capital and startup reporter at TechCrunch. She is based in New York.
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