- The HR automation startup 50skills, based in Iceland, has secured $6 million in new funding.
- The platform offers capabilities that go beyond an AI operating system. Customers can explain their processes in simple language, after which an agent sets up the corresponding workflow.
- The team, which consists of 20 people, is planning to hire more staff in the Nordics and is also considering entering the US and Benelux markets.
Kristján Freyr Kristjánsson never intended to found an HR company. When he was employed at the Icelandic fintech firm Meniga, he had difficulty linking the various systems and creating workflows that functioned as intended.
“There was a need both to design processes and to see how they worked in practice,” he says in an interview with Tech Funding News.
This insight prompted him to launch 50skills, a company that just raised $6 million in a round led by Frumtak Ventures, Swiss Post Ventures, Avant, and DRD Investments to fuel its growth.
The mechanics behind 50skills
The platform offers capabilities that go beyond an AI operating system. Customers can explain their processes in simple language, after which an agent sets up the corresponding workflow.
The system then generates additional agents to carry out tasks such as screening candidates, sending policy alerts, or drafting onboarding emails.
“What we’re really trying to do is to help the user give some context about their own business and processes so that the agent can assist in building and streamlining those areas,” notes Kristjánsson, pointing out that the platform makes use of a number of AI models.
On a broader competitive scale, Personio has a valuation of $8.5 billion, Rippling has reached a valuation of $16.8 billion, and HiBob has raised $565 million. Among the other companies involved in HR automation are Shapes from Tel Aviv and Central, which was backed by Y Combinator.
Why raising funds now?
In May 2022, 50skills landed $2.6 million in seed funding from Frumtak Ventures. According to Kristjánsson, the company had not sought further financing for almost three years since it wasn’t necessary.
“The company has been performing exceptionally well. Customers are using the platform more and are asking for more as well, and we have been running it efficiently,” he states.
Kristjánsson explains that the recent fundraising was due to a significant increase in platform usage: last year customers automated more than one million actions, and this year they have reached six million in just a couple of months.
50skills has approximately 20 employees in Iceland, Stockholm, and the UK and is currently hiring in Stockholm, in Iceland, and for remote positions. The company intends to expand into the US and the Benelux region, but hiring in those areas has not yet begun.
Frumtak Ventures partner and chair of the 50skills board, Ásthildur Otharsdóttir noted: “50skills has turned years of customer feedback into a platform organisations run their people operations on every day. As AI changes how work gets done, the companies that win will be those that bring people, workflows and AI agents together safely and effectively. 50skills has the product, the domain expertise and the customer traction to lead that shift.”
The global HR technology market will grow from $43.66 billion in 2025 to $95.95 billion by 2034, representing a compound annual growth rate of 9.2%. Kristjánsson concludes, “AI is here to stay, and people need to use it in the right, responsible way with human oversight.”
Rather than merely raising money, 50skills is concentrating on the responsible use of AI.
