Orbio raises £16M amid growing enterprise demand for Agentic AI
Orbio announced a £16m Series A led by Dawn Capital, Europe’s leading specialist B2B technology investor, alongside existing investors including Visionaries. The company is expanding to the UK with its current global customers and will make local hires to support its in-country operations.
Orbio already works with global enterprise customers including AWWG (the global fashion group operating Hackett, Pepe Jeans and Tommy Hilfiger licenses), Poke House, Atento, Yum Brands (KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut) and Adecco.
These companies use Orbio’s AI agents to hire, onboard, manage and retain frontline employees at scale. Operating autonomously across channels including messaging and phone calls, Orbio’s agents can engage candidates and employees directly, handling hiring, onboarding, engagement and offboarding workflows for both full-time and shift-based workforces.
Orbio’s expansion is backed by audited results across Orbio’s current markets: over 60% time-to-hire reduction at a pan-European security customer, 60% productivity gains at Poke House, and 70% recruiter productivity uplift across multi-language retail in Benelux.
Several UK customers are in implementation, with global partners including AWWG, Poke House, Atento, Yum Brands and Adecco bringing their existing Orbio deployments into the UK.
An under-served global workforce
80% of the world’s workforce operates on the frontlines of essential industries: the 2.7 billion healthcare workers, retail associates, warehouse operators, hospitality staff and logistics drivers who keep economies running. The difference between a staffed shift and an unstaffed one directly impacts revenue, customer experience and operational performance.
Yet most enterprise software built over the past two decades was designed for desk-based knowledge workers. Frontline employees are often deskless, without corporate email addresses, and are reached through messaging and phone calls rather than software logins. As a result, frontline hiring and workforce management still relies heavily on fragmented manual processes, spreadsheets and large operational teams, consuming significant time and costing organisations billions every year.
The cost is felt on both sides. Annual employee turnover exceeds 70% in many frontline sectors, leaving recruiters and operations teams buried in administrative work while unfilled roles create operational drag. At the same time, workers often enter jobs without proper onboarding, lose contact with employers within days, and leave within weeks.
The solution
Orbio is building an AI workforce platform designed for frontline industries. Its agents can conduct interviews, assess candidate fit and motivation, guide new hires through onboarding, monitor engagement and churn signals, and remain in contact with employees throughout their lifecycle – from first application through to tenure and exit.
For employers, this creates a fundamentally new operating model: the ability to engage and support frontline workforces 24/7 while delegating large parts of workforce operations to AI agents. The result is faster hiring, lower administrative burden, improved retention and a more resilient operational workforce.
Matching talent to demand
“This is not a talent shortage problem, it’s a talent allocation problem,” said Sergi Bastardas, co-founder and CEO of Orbio. “The people are there. The work is there. What’s been missing is the ability to connect frontline workers with opportunities quickly, consistently and at scale.
“With Orbio, candidates can be contacted within seconds, onboarding can happen in hours rather than days, and employers can stay continuously connected with their workforce. The result is faster hiring, lower attrition and smoother operations, while workers get a better chance to start, stay and grow.”
“What stands out about Orbio is the speed at which customers have completely rebuilt their operating models around it,” said Henry Mason, Partner at Dawn Capital said Henry Mason, Partner at Dawn Capital. “In a matter of months, some of the world’s largest employers have embraced AI-first frontline workforce management with Orbio at the core, replacing labour budgets in a permanent way.”
Global footprint and mission
Orbio already serves customers across Europe, the US and Latin America. The new capital will fund further expansion across those markets, alongside continued development of Orbio’s AI agent suite across the full employee lifecycle.
Orbio’s mission is to modernise workforce operations for the 2.7 billion frontline workers underserved by traditional enterprise software.
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