HR teams are facing challenges with fewer staff and higher employee expectations. However, many companies still use outdated ticketing systems designed for IT or basic AI chatbots that only provide answers rather than actually help.
London-based startup Kinfolk aims to address this problem. The AI-native HR operations platform has raised £7 million in a Seed round led by AlbionVC, with participation from PROfounders Capital and existing investors Ascension and Emerge.
Notable angels, including Tony Jamous, Founder and Executive Chairman of OysterHR, also joined the round. The raise brings Kinfolk’s total funding to $8.5 million.
The new funding will be used to deepen the capabilities of Kinfolk’s agentic AI platform and strengthen enterprise readiness.
The company also plans to expand beyond core HR workflows into closer collaboration with payroll and IT functions, laying the groundwork for a broader workforce operations platform.
At the same time, Kinfolk intends to scale its go-to-market teams to meet growing demand.
Jeet Mukerji, Co-founder and CEO of Kinfolk, said: “HR teams are stuck in a cycle of manual admin and legacy tools are failing them. They are forced to choose between clunky ticketing systems that employees hate, or basic chatbots that can’t actually get work done. We built Kinfolk to break this cycle. By shifting from manual coordination to autonomous execution, we let HR teams scale their operations and focus on the strategic work that actually drives company growth. We’re excited to give People teams the operating system they deserve, one that actually performs work instead of just managing it.”
Moving from chatbots to autonomous agents
Kinfolk was founded by Jeet Mukerji and Kim Hellbom, Kinfolk is the AI Workforce Operations platform for modern HR teams.
The platform integrates directly into Slack and Microsoft Teams, where the agents can draft documents, update HRIS records, manage employee lifecycle changes, and handle operational workflows end to end.
This replaces disjointed tools and manual effort, helping organisations scale operations and improve support consistency while allowing teams to do more without hiring additional staff.
At present, the company counts Deliveroo, Hudl, Intercom and RetailNext among its customers. According to Kinfolk, some clients have either replaced or significantly reduced reliance on tools such as ServiceNow, Zendesk and Jira.
Customers report that Kinfolk handles up to 80% of Tier 0–1 employee requests autonomously, reclaiming around 45 days per year for HR teams. The startup says this shift has helped drive 5x annual recurring revenue growth in 2025.
Paul Lehair, Partner at AlbionVC, said: “We believe Kinfolk is set to become the backbone for the next generation of HR and workforce operation teams. Jeet and Kim are exceptional founders and bring deep experience from scaling AI products at Beamery. They have identified a massive opportunity to fix a legacy market dominated by outdated, rigid tools. The feedback from customers is that Kinfolk isn’t just another tool; it’s like adding a new, super-productive member to the team that allows them to focus on what matters most. We are delighted to support them on this journey.”
