HR teams are facing the challenge of reduced staff numbers and increased employee expectations. However, many companies still use outdated ticketing systems It is designed for IT or basic AI chatbots that only provide answers rather than actually being helpful..
London-based startup Kinfolk aims to address this problem. The AI-native HR operations platform has raised £7m in a seed round led by AlbionVC, with participation from PROfounders Capital and existing investors Ascension and Emerge.
Prominent angels also participated in the round, including Tony Jamous, Founder and Executive Chairman of OysterHR. This raise brings Kinfolk’s total funding to $8.5 million.
The new funding will be used to deepen the capabilities of Kinfolk’s agent AI platform and enhance enterprise responsiveness.
The company also plans to expand beyond core HR workflows into closer collaboration with payroll and IT departments, laying the foundation for a broader employee operations platform.
At the same time, Kinfolk plans to expand its go-to-market team to meet growing demand.
Jeet Mukerji, co-founder and CEO of Kinfolk, said: “HR teams are stuck in a cycle of manual management, and traditional tools are failing them. They are forced to choose between clunky ticketing systems that employees hate, and basic chatbots that don’t actually get the job done. To break this cycle, we at Kinfolk By moving from manual adjustments to automated execution, we’re excited to give HR teams the ability to scale their operations and focus on the strategic work that actually drives the company’s growth.
Transitioning from chatbots to autonomous agents
Founded by Jeet Mukerji and Kim Hellbom, Kinfolk is an AI workforce operations platform for modern HR teams.
The platform integrates directly with Slack and Microsoft Teams, allowing agents to draft documents, update HRIS records, manage employee lifecycle changes, and handle end-to-end operational workflows.
This replaces disparate tools and manual tasks, allowing organizations to scale operations and improve support consistency, while empowering teams to do more without hiring additional staff.
Currently, the company’s customers include Deliveroo, Hudl, Intercom, and RetailNext. According to Kinfolk, some clients have replaced or significantly reduced their dependencies on tools like ServiceNow, Zendesk, and Jira.
Customers report that Kinfolk handles up to 80% of Tier 0-1 employee requests autonomously, allocating approximately 45 days per year to the HR team. The company says the changes will result in annual recurring revenue growth of five times in 2025.
Paul Lehair, partner at AlbionVC, said: “We believe Kinfolk will be the backbone of the next generation of HR and workforce operations teams. Jet and Kim are outstanding founders and bring deep experience in scaling AI products to Beamery. They have identified a huge opportunity to fix a legacy market dominated by outdated and rigid tools. Customer feedback shows that Kinfolk is more than just a tool, it’s a new and highly productive addition to the team, and we’re excited to support them on this journey.”
