Orbio, a Barcelona-based enterprise startup, has raised $21 million in Series A funding to bring AI-powered automation to the way businesses hire, onboard, and manage frontline workers. The round was led by Dawn Capital, with participation from Visionaries Club and 2100 Ventures, bringing the company’s total funding to $26 million.
The startup, founded in 2025 by Sergi Bastardas (formerly of Amazon and floriculture startup Colvin), Nacho Travesí, and Antonio Melé, deploys a team of AI agents named Maria, Daniel, and Claire to handle the full employee lifecycle. These agents interview candidates, assess fit, monitor performance, and run daily check-ins. The goal is to free up HR teams from the fragmented, often manual processes that still plague frontline workforce management in healthcare, retail, logistics, and hospitality.
Orbio is already working with major brands including Poke and YUM! (owner of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC). At behavioral health provider The Stepping Stones Group, Orbio now manages the company’s full U.S. hiring operation, with a reported 20% increase in candidates making it through to hire. The platform positions itself as a direct competitor to legacy approaches — think spreadsheets and phone trees — rather than just other HR tech startups like Paradox or WorkJam.
Co-founder Bastardas describes the vision as an autonomous workforce operations system where data flows between agents: onboarding signals inform recruiting quality, exit interviews reveal why employees leave, and engagement data identifies retention risks early. The fresh capital will go toward building more AI agents and expanding the platform’s capabilities.
The broader thesis here is compelling. There are roughly 2.7 billion frontline workers globally who don’t have corporate email addresses. Most HR tech has been built for desk workers. Orbio is betting that AI agents can finally deliver the same efficiency gains to the people who keep hospitals, restaurants, warehouses, and stores running.
Source: TechCrunch
