London-based Ethos, which uses AI to connect companies with human experts, has secured $22.75 million in Series A funding, led by Andreessen Horowitz and joined by General Catalyst.
Ethos uses AI to conduct interviews and review candidates’ work, such as academic papers, code, and other professional content, to build a detailed profile of each person’s skills. The platform then connects experts with paid opportunities, such as expert calls, market research, AI data labelling, consulting, and full-time jobs.
“A CV is a poor proxy for what someone is truly capable of. Ethos helps people to see the full shape of their expertise and where it fits in an AI-transformed economy – acting as their agent, opening doors they didn’t know existed, and giving companies a far more precise way to find the people they actually need. AI is reshaping the labour market faster than our tools for valuing human expertise can keep up. Ethos is built to change that,” says James Lo, co-founder and CEO of Ethos.
Ethos was founded by Lo with Daniel J. Mankowitz in 2023, who are the former employees of Google DeepMind, McKinsey, and SoftBank. The company tackles the problem of fake or AI-generated CVs, which make it harder to confirm a candidate’s real skills.
AI tools make it easy and cheap to create job applications, but this means applications are less useful for showing real skills. Employers and platforms seeking experts, such as investment funds, AI labs, and consultancies, encounter many similar profiles and struggle to distinguish candidates. Matching the right expertise to the right job remains a significant challenge in the global talent market.
Ethos aim is to help experts find new opportunities they might not have considered before, not just help with current job applications.
Each week, more than 5,000 professionals join Ethos from fields such as accounting, banking, consulting, law, technology, healthcare, and skilled trades like electricians and plumbers. On average, experts earn an extra £4,500 per month through the platform, and the top 10% earn over £7,000 per month, according to Ethos.
Competition in this sector is growing. Platforms like GLG, AlphaSights, and Toptal focus on specific segments of the expert-matching market, while newer companies such as Contra and Braintrust target freelance and professional talent more broadly. Unlike these services, which primarily rely on self-reported credentials and client searches, Ethos actively identifies and presents opportunities to experts.
“Knowledge is our most precious resource, yet for too long the expertise inside people’s heads
has been invisible to the economy. Ethos changes the game by capturing the true value of what
people know and connecting it to the opportunities that need it most,” says Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, president and managing director of General Catalyst.
The fresh funding will help Ethos expand its AI agent, grow its global network of experts, and build stronger partnerships with AI labs and business clients.
