Orbio raises – Orbio, founded by former Amazon executive Sergi Bastardas and launched in 2025, has raised a $21 million Series A led by Dawn Capital to deploy AI agents for hiring, onboarding, and ongoing management of frontline workers. Customers including Poke and YUM! Bra
When Sergi Bastardas looks at the way frontline work gets managed, he doesn’t see a staffing problem so much as a missing layer of “human infrastructure” that quietly controls whether people get hired, trained, and kept.
After a decade at Amazon and time building floriculture startup Colvin, Bastardas took that frustration into a new venture. In 2025, he and co-founders Nacho Travesí and Antonio Melé launched Orbio, an enterprise startup that uses AI agents to help businesses onboard and manage frontline workers.
On Monday, Orbio announced a $21 million Series A, led by Dawn Capital. The company says its customers already include Poke and YUM! Brands, the owners of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC. Bastardas said those customers are progressing from pilot programs to fully deploying Orbio’s software.
One example is the behavioral health provider The Stepping Stones Group. Bastardas said Orbio now runs the company’s full U.S. operation, with 20% more candidates making it through the hiring process.
Orbio’s system is built around AI agents—Maria. Daniel. and Claire—that the company says can interview candidates. assess fit. monitor employee output. and conduct daily check-ins across an employee’s lifecycle. Bastardas framed the goal as more than automation for a single step in HR. He said the approach is designed so businesses can run their workforces more autonomously: engage and support frontline workers while delegating some workforce operations to AI agents.
The agents are also intended to learn from each other’s outputs. Bastardas said each agent generates data that feeds back across the system—onboarding signals can inform recruiting quality. exit interviews can reveal why employees leave and recalibrate hiring criteria. and engagement data can flag retention risks.
Orbio is stepping into a field already populated by other startups. It competes with Paradox, which helps automate recruiting, and WorkJam, which focuses on managing frontline employees.
Bastardas said Orbio’s biggest competitor, in practice, is the legacy way frontline management still often works—fragmented processes that can rely on spreadsheets and phone calls, especially in healthcare, retail, and logistics. He argues that this is changing quickly in the age of AI.
Orbio also says it has raised $26 million in funding to date, with investors including Visionaries and 2100 Ventures. Bastardas said the new capital will be used to hire and develop more AI agents.
“This will be [a] transformation for businesses, but also the workforce,” Bastardas said. He pointed to the scale of frontline labor—“The 2.7 billion people who keep healthcare. retail. logistics. and hospitality running. most of whom don’t have a corporate email address”—and called it “their AI moment.”.
Orbio Dawn Capital Series A AI agents frontline hiring onboarding automation YUM! Brands Pizza Hut Taco Bell KFC The Stepping Stones Group workforce management recruiting automation retail logistics healthcare
So now AI is gonna “hire” people? Cool cool.
I don’t get how this isn’t just replacing HR people with robots. They say “more candidates making it through” like that’s a good thing but… what happens if the AI doesn’t like you? Also Poke and YUM Brands sounds random lol.
Wait, the article says it runs the Stepping Stones Group full US operation? Like the behavioral health provider is using AI to do daily check-ins with employees?? That sounds messed up. Who’s liable if the agent flags someone wrong or misses burnout or whatever. Seems like they’re calling it “human infrastructure” but it’s still just automation.
21 million to automate hiring… isn’t that just more layoffs coming? Like I swear these startups always start with “help” and then it turns into fewer managers and less human oversight. Also the agents are named Maria Daniel Claire?? sounds like a sitcom. I’m guessing the AI will “monitor output” and then people get treated like robots instead of real staff. Can’t wait for some lawsuit over some guy getting rejected because of a personality score or something.