After a decade at Amazon and Colvin, Sergi Bastardas identified a gap in managing frontline employees efficiently. He launched Orbio in 2025 with co-founders Nacho Travesí and Antonio Melé to address this challenge. The enterprise startup announced a $21 million Series A round led by Dawn Capital, bringing total funding to $26 million.

Orbio's AI agents—Maria, Daniel, and Claire—handle recruiting, onboarding, performance monitoring, and daily check-ins throughout an employee's lifecycle. Customers include Poke and YUM! Brands, which owns Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC. At The Stepping Stones Group, Orbio now manages the entire US operation, resulting in 20% more candidates successfully hired. The platform's interconnected agents use hiring data to refine recruitment quality and identify retention risks.

Bastardas positions Orbio against legacy approaches still relying on spreadsheets and phone calls, particularly in healthcare, retail, and logistics sectors. While competitors like Paradox and WorkJam offer related solutions, the real opportunity lies in serving the 2.7 billion frontline workers who lack corporate email addresses and traditional HR tools.

The fresh capital will fund additional AI agent development and hiring. This represents a meaningful shift toward autonomous workforce management, potentially reshaping how businesses engage the essential workers who keep critical industries running.