After spending nearly a decade at Amazon and the floriculture startup Colvin, Sergi Bastardas came away with one consistent observation: businesses lacked efficient “human infrastructure” to support and manage frontline employees behind the scenes. Motivated by that experience, Bastardas joined forces with co-founders Nacho Travesí and Antonio Melé to launch Orbio in 2025, creating an enterprise software company that uses AI agents to help organisations recruit, onboard, and manage frontline workforces.
On Monday, the company announced it had secured $21 million in Series A funding, led by Dawn Capital. Orbio says its customer base already includes Poke and YUM! Brands—the parent company of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC—use the platform to recruit, onboard, and manage frontline employees. Bastardas said many customers have moved beyond pilot programs and are now deploying the platform across their operations. As one example, he noted that behavioural healthcare provider The Stepping Stones Group now relies on Orbio to manage its entire U.S. operation, resulting in 20% more job candidates successfully progressing through the hiring process.
Orbio’s AI agents—named Maria, Daniel, and Claire—are designed to conduct candidate interviews, evaluate applicant suitability, monitor employee performance, and carry out regular check-ins throughout a worker’s employment journey. According to Bastardas, the objective is to help companies manage their frontline workforce more autonomously, enabling businesses to continue supporting employees while delegating routine workforce management tasks to AI-powered assistants.
“Each agent generates data that feeds back into the others: onboarding signals inform recruiting quality; exit interviews reveal why employees leave, which recalibrates hiring criteria; engagement data identifies retention risks,” Bastardas explained.
Orbio operates in a competitive market alongside companies such as Paradox, which focuses on AI-driven recruiting automation, and WorkJam, which provides workforce management tools for frontline employees.
However, Bastardas believes Orbio’s biggest competition is not another startup but the traditional methods many businesses still use to manage frontline workers. Industries including healthcare, retail, and logistics often continue to rely on fragmented systems involving spreadsheets, emails, and phone calls. He argues that artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming these outdated processes. To date, Orbio has raised $26 million from investors, including Visionaries and 2100 Ventures. Bastardas said the newly raised capital will be invested in expanding the company’s team and developing additional AI agents.
“This will be a transformation for businesses, but also the workforce,” Bastardas said. “The 2.7 billion people who keep healthcare, retail, logistics, and hospitality running, most of whom don’t have a corporate email address, have previously received nothing. This is their AI moment.”
