Orbio raises $21 million for AI hiring tools aimed at frontline employers

Orbio raised a $21 million Series A to expand its AI workforce platform for companies that hire and manage frontline employees.

Dawn Capital led the round, Orbio said Monday. The company has raised $26 million to date from investors that include Visionaries and 2100 Ventures.

Sergi Bastardas founded Orbio in 2025 with Nacho Travesí and Antonio Melé after work at Amazon and Colvin, a floriculture startup. Bastardas told TechCrunch he saw companies struggle to manage workers who lack corporate email accounts and sit outside standard knowledge worker software.

Orbio sells AI agents named Maria, Daniel, and Claire. Employers use them to screen candidates, assess fit, support onboarding, monitor worker output, and run worker check-ins. Orbio says customers include Poke, Yum Brands, and The Stepping Stones Group.

Bastardas said The Stepping Stones Group uses Orbio across its U.S. operation and now moves 20% more candidates through to hire. TechCrunch did not provide baseline hiring volume, retention data, cost data, or an independent customer interview, so readers should treat that number as a company-reported metric.

The claim sounds clear: Orbio can move frontline workforce management from spreadsheets, calls, and disconnected tools into AI-run workflows. The fresh capital gives the company room to hire staff and build more agents.

The new part lies in scope. Many recruiting tools automate pieces of hiring. Paradox focuses on conversational recruiting, while WorkJam sells frontline employee management software. Orbio says it connects recruiting, onboarding, engagement, performance tracking, and exit feedback inside one agent system.

That matters for employers with high-volume hiring. A restaurant group, health care staffing firm, warehouse operator, or retailer can lose candidates between text messages, forms, background checks, training, and first-shift coordination. Managers also spend time chasing updates across systems that many desk workers take for granted.

Orbio’s pitch asks employers to trust software with decisions that affect paychecks and staffing. That raises old human resources questions in a newer AI package. Employers need to know which signals Orbio uses, which workers the system disadvantages, how candidates can contest errors, and which manager owns the final decision.

The company also enters a crowded market. Legacy applicant tracking systems, scheduling tools, workforce management platforms, and recruiting automation vendors already touch pieces of the same workflow. Orbio can win if customers see faster hiring, lower turnover, and less manager workload after rollout. Pilot enthusiasm will mean less than renewal rates and deployment depth.

Bastardas frames frontline work as a large neglected software market. He said 2.7 billion workers keep health care, retail, logistics, and hospitality running without access to many corporate tools. Orbio now has to prove that AI agents can help those workers and managers without turning workforce operations into a black box.