Koios, an HRTech startup empowering talent and HR leaders to unlock human potential with the transformative power of Acoustic AI, has announced that it has raised $550,000 in a pre-seed funding round led by Seedcamp, with participation from Evolvient Capital and several undisclosed angel investors. The company intends to use the proceeds from this round of funding to develop the platform further.
Koios is a voice-driven AI platform founded by former Spotify and Snap Inc. recruiter Tom Sherwood, Seedcamp talent manager Alex Lewis, and QuantCo research data scientist Martin Lukac to transform how organisations engage with their people fundamentally. The startup aims to empower talent leaders and organisations with personalised methods for communicating, motivating, and developing each individual. It creates and deploys cutting-edge audio deep learning models based on original data, emphasising a conscientious and ethical approach.
Speaking about the company, Co-founder & COO of Koios, Alex Lewis, said:
Tom and I had been helping companies across the Big Tech, startup, and the scale-up world for years, and one of the biggest buzzwords and blockers to hiring at the time was “culture fit”, which we despised as it had connotations of an individual having to “fit in” rather than a company enabling the success of each employee.
Lewis added:
As managers and leaders, we’d been through personality assessments over the years, and we recognised that there were some valuable insights in the more “robust” estimates and questioned why there wasn’t greater adoption across the industry below leadership level (93% of the market wasn’t being served). After speaking with industry leaders, they clarified that if friction from self-assessment could be removed and a more cost-effective model implemented, mass adoption would be possible.
After collecting a minimum of 90 seconds of an employee’s or candidate’s active speech, Koios goes to work, ultimately providing a customised set of personality and management insights. These insights give managers and organisations custom-tailored ways to communicate, motivate, and develop each employee.
Commenting on the fundraising, Seedcamp Managing Partner Carlos Espinal MBE said:
Having worked closely together with Alex in his previous role as Seedcamp’s Head of Talent, I’ve admired his dedication and passion for nurturing talent across our portfolio and empowering them to thrive., Designed as an enablement tool, the platform helps find a better fit between employers and employees, thus facilitating a successful and productive long-term collaboration.
