Firstwork, an AI platform for frontline workforce operations, has announced a $15 million Series A led by Earlybird Venture Capital, with participation from Legion VC, Deel Ventures and existing investors Gradient and Y Combinator. The round brings its total funding to date to $20 million.

Firstwork was founded in 2024 by Vardhan Kapoor and Shubham Choudhary. Kapoor previously led APAC at Remitly and strategy at Deliveroo Singapore, while Choudhary was a Director of Engineering at Deel after helping build Rippling’s global employment infrastructure.

More than 150,000 frontline workers now start work through Firstwork each month. Customers including Deel, Job&Talent, Relay, Wonolo and BGSF have cut the time workers and HR teams spend on each new hire by up to 90%, according to the company. 

“The systems employers rely on were built to record what happened, not to actually do the work,” says Kapoor. “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. Applied AI changes what is possible."

"We can now give every frontline worker the kind of support that used to be reserved for the top of the labor market, from the moment they apply through every stage of their employment.”

Firstwork began with one of the most acute points in the workforce lifecycle: the period between an accepted offer and a worker’s first shift. The company is now extending its agents across the broader set of operational workflows that follow, including re-verification, credential renewals, recurring training, compliance management and worker support.

“Firstwork is addressing one of the largest untouched opportunities for applied AI in enterprise software. In under two years, Firstwork has built agents that automate compliance workflows at scale, performing millions of actions every month to reduce the time to clear a worker from days to minutes.” says Tim Rehder, General Partner at Earlybird Venture Capital.

“Rather than competing for software budgets, Firstwork competes for the far larger budget employers spend on the people and outsourced teams who do onboarding and compliance by hand, winning 7-figure deals already. That makes it one of the biggest opportunities in applied AI.”

“In frontline businesses, workforce capacity is the strategy. Every candidate lost between offer and first shift means an uncovered shift, a service gap and revenue left on the table. Firstwork turns onboarding from an administrative cost into a competitive advantage, and frees operations teams to focus on the work only people can do,” says Prerana Issar, Advisor at Firstwork, and former Chief People Officer at J. Sainsbury and NHS England.

Firstwork will use the funding to grow its applied AI, AI research, engineering, and go to market teams, expand its presence across the United States and Europe, and extend its AI agents into additional parts of frontline workforce operations.

2026 RTIH Innovation Awards

AI will be a key focus area at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards.

The awards, which celebrate global retail technology innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world, have now closed for entries. Our winners will be revealed at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony, taking place at The HAC in Central London on Wednesday, 4th November.

Check out our 2026 shortlists and finalists here.

We received a record number of entries this year and many fantastic examples of technology excellence driving transformative change across the global retail sector.

Congratulations to all those who made it through the initial submission process! It’s now over to our star studded judging panel who will decide the winners to be announced at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony, taking place at The HAC in Central London. 

The event will be held on Wednesday, 4th November and consist of a drinks reception, three course meal, awards ceremony presided over by award winning stand-up comedian, presenter, actor and broadcaster, Aurie Styla, and after party until 1am.

Click here to book your place at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony on Wednesday, 4th November.