After a decade managing large, complex workforces at Amazon and later at floriculture startup Colvin, Sergi Bastardas kept running into the same problem: the systems meant to support frontline workers were fragmented, manual, and often an afterthought. Spreadsheets, phone calls, and disconnected tools were still the norm for the people who keep stores open, hospitals running, and deliveries moving.
That frustration led Bastardas, together with co-founders Nacho Travesí and Antonio Melé, to launch Orbio, an enterprise platform built to automate the hiring and management of frontline workers using AI agents. The company has now secured a $21 million Series A round led by Dawn Capital, bringing its total funding to $26 million from backers including Visionaries and 2100 Ventures.
Orbio’s software is already being used by brands such as Poke and YUM! Brands, the parent company of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC, to streamline how they recruit, onboard, and support hourly staff. At behavioral health provider The Stepping Stones Group, Orbio’s system now runs the company’s entire US operation, with the startup reporting a 20% increase in candidates successfully making it through to hire.
At the core of Orbio are its AI agents, given human names like Maria, Daniel, and Claire. These agents can screen and interview candidates, assess role fit, coordinate onboarding, monitor performance, and conduct daily check-ins throughout an employee’s lifecycle. The ambition is not just to digitize paperwork, but to let businesses delegate large parts of workforce operations to software that can run continuously and at scale.
Bastardas describes a feedback loop in which each agent’s work improves the others. Signals from onboarding feed into recruiting models to refine which candidates are most likely to succeed. Exit interviews help explain why employees leave, prompting adjustments in hiring criteria or engagement strategies. Ongoing engagement data highlights retention risks before they become staffing crises.
Orbio operates in a competitive field that includes recruiting automation startup Paradox and frontline management platform WorkJam. Yet Bastardas argues the real rival is the status quo: legacy processes that leave the world’s 2.7 billion frontline workers with minimal digital support and little visibility into their own careers.
The new capital will go toward expanding Orbio’s team and building more specialized AI agents. The company is betting that as employers race to modernize operations with AI, the biggest gains will come from finally giving frontline workers a dedicated, intelligent infrastructure of their own.
