SAN FRANCISCO — Firstwork, an applied AI platform designed to automate frontline workforce operations, announced it has raised $15 million in a Series A funding round led by Earlybird Venture Capital.
The investment round also saw participation from Legion VC, Deel Ventures, and existing backers Gradient and Y Combinator. The fresh capital brings the startup’s total funding to $20 million since its founding in 2024.
Firstwork targets a critical pinch point in global labor markets: candidate drop-off during onboarding. While sectors ranging from healthcare and trucking to energy face severe labor shortages, employers frequently lose qualified applicants who get stuck in cumbersome operational hurdles before their first day on the job.
Automating the “Between-the-Systems” Work
Traditional human resources, payroll, and screening platforms primarily operate as static “systems of record”—storing information rather than executing tasks. Consequently, HR teams are left manually cross-referencing portals, tracking down missing paperwork, and running compliance checks.
Rather than requiring companies to replace their existing HR infrastructure, Firstwork deploys autonomous AI agents that layer directly on top of legacy HR, screening, and payroll software. The agents handle:
- Instant document verification and ID processing
- Right-to-work and background checks
- Training scheduling and onboarding workflows
- Continuous compliance audits and proactive check-ins
“The systems employers rely on were built to record what happened, not to actually do the work,” said Vardhan Kapoor, co-founder and CEO of Firstwork. “That leaves HR and operations teams spending enormous amounts of time chasing documents, coordinating across systems, and supporting workers through processes that extend well beyond day one.”
Kapoor—previously an executive at Remitly and Deliveroo—founded Firstwork in 2024 alongside CTO Shubham Choudhary, a former engineering leader at Deel and Rippling.
Rapid Scale and Measurable ROI
Firstwork reported that more than 150,000 frontline employees now clear onboarding and start shifts through its platform every month.
Key enterprise clients, including Deel, Job&Talent, Wonolo, Relay, and BGSF, have reported cutting onboarding administration time by up to 90%. According to the company, one of its enterprise customers tripled the number of qualified applicants who successfully reached their first shift.
“Agents [are] performing millions of actions every month to reduce the time to clear a worker from days to minutes,” said Tim Rehder, General Partner at Earlybird Venture Capital.
Looking Ahead
With the new injection of capital, Firstwork plans to:
- Expand its team across applied AI research, engineering, and go-to-market functions.
- Accelerate commercial expansion across both North American and European markets.
- Broaden platform capabilities to cover the entire frontline employee lifecycle, including automated license renewals, recurring credential tracking, and ongoing worker retention support.
