frontline-workers
(17)
Sidekick
Sidekick is an AI-powered SMS assistant for frontline and deskless workers in manufacturing, auto dealerships, and retail. Workers text questions in any language and get instant answers pulled from their company's own documents - no app, no login, works on any phone. They can send photos of equipment for identification or voice memos when their hands are dirty. When Sidekick cannot answer, it escalates to a manager over SMS and learns from the reply. Founded in 2026 by Justin So and backed by Y Combinator (S26), it is live with 20+ plants and 600+ workers.
Canvas Envision
Canvas Envision (Canvas GFX) is a Boston-based enterprise software company that turns 3D CAD data, documents and video into interactive, model-based digital work instructions for frontline manufacturing workers. Its cloud platform serves as the visual execution layer of the digital thread, connecting engineering systems (PLM, MES) to the factory floor so assembly, maintenance and repair teams get accurate, up-to-date guidance instead of outdated PDFs and tribal knowledge. Building on 40 years of Canvas graphics heritage, the company serves aerospace, defense, automotive, medical device and industrial machinery manufacturers.
DeepHow
DeepHow is a Detroit-based enterprise AI company that turns the hands-on know-how of experienced industrial workers into structured, searchable training. Founded in 2018 by former Siemens innovation leaders, its platform uses vision AI and machine learning to capture expert workflows on video, automatically segment and transcribe them into step-by-step guides, and - in its newer 'physical AI' products - verify that frontline operators are performing tasks correctly in real time. Used by manufacturers, pharma companies and field-service organizations to close skills gaps as veteran workers retire.
Go2
Go2 is an AI-powered remote staffing and workforce management company that hires, trains, and manages frontline support teams for businesses on a subscription basis. Founded in 2016 by Scott Moran, it pairs a global talent pool - drawn from more than 50 countries - with a software platform that uses data and AI to match workers to employers on skills, work style and cultural fit, then tracks productivity and coaching after placement. The dual model lets Go2 operate as both a staffing provider and a workforce-data platform, with AI capabilities first developed in its Cowork initiative now being rolled back into Go2 for a fall product launch.
TeamBridge
TeamBridge is a San Francisco company building a composable, AI-native workforce management platform for the hourly and frontline workforce - roughly 70% of the world's workers. Founded in 2020 by former Uber product and design leaders Arjun Vora and Tito Goldstein, it hands operators 'LEGO block' modules for scheduling, onboarding, time and attendance, communication, instant pay and custom mobile apps, so companies can run staffing operations as one connected system. It raised a $28M Series B in September 2024 led by Mayfield, bringing total funding to about $41.5M.
Wonolo
Wonolo is an on-demand staffing marketplace whose name stands for 'Work Now Locally.' Founded in 2013 out of Coca-Cola's Founders program, it connects businesses that need workers for warehousing, delivery, merchandising, event staffing, and general labor with a pool of more than one million registered workers ('Wonoloers'). Employers post shifts that can be filled in minutes, and workers browse and accept nearby gigs through a mobile app with fast payouts. The company has raised over $200 million in venture funding and is used by thousands of companies across the United States.
LANDED
LANDED is a New York- and San Francisco-based startup that builds generative-AI hiring software for high-volume, frontline employers - the restaurants, retailers, and hospitality chains that hire hourly workers by the thousands. Its platform automates the tedious parts of hiring - sourcing, resume reading, screening, text-message engagement, and interview scheduling - using proprietary AI models trained on data from more than two million hourly workers. Founded in 2019 by Vivian Wang and backed by Y Combinator, Javelin Venture Partners, Lightspeed, and others, LANDED serves 500+ brands including Five Guys, Cava, Panera, and Salt & Straw.
MiChamba
MiChamba is a Mexico-founded startup that turns WhatsApp into an operational management platform for frontline and deskless teams across Latin America and the US Hispanic market. Instead of forcing workers onto a new app, it layers AI agents - led by an assistant named MarIA - on top of the messaging tool people already use, converting informal chats into trackable tasks, reports, and productivity data. It raised a $2.25M pre-seed round in 2025 and counts Hilton, Pemex, and Repsol among 50+ customers in construction, hospitality, logistics, and industrial sectors.
Refresh
Refresh is a white-labeled employee-experience SuperApp that unifies benefits, wellness, recognition, communication, and onboarding into one branded mobile app. Born in 2007 as Refresh Body, a New York on-demand massage-and-yoga concierge for offices and hotels, it pivoted into HR technology aimed at the deskless and frontline majority of the global workforce. Its orchestration layer connects thousands of existing HR, payroll, and collaboration tools, then delivers the right resource to the right employee at the right moment - so benefits that companies already pay for actually get used.
Teamforce AI
Teamforce AI is a San Francisco-based B2B software company that helps manufacturers, warehouses, and logistics operations surface the hazards and near misses their formal reporting systems never catch. Built on the premise that frontline workers know the real risks but rarely speak up, its anonymous capture-and-verify platform surfaces hidden hazards, confirms that fixes actually changed behavior on the floor, and quantifies the dollars avoided - positioning itself as a 'system of proof' for operational risk rather than another suggestion box.
Squint
Squint is a San Francisco Manufacturing Intelligence company that uses AI and augmented reality to capture the know-how of experienced factory operators and hand it back to the whole floor. Through a mobile app that recognizes machinery the way FaceID recognizes faces, Squint turns scattered tribal knowledge into instant, contextual guidance - cutting training time, reducing downtime, and standardizing work across hundreds of Fortune 500 factories.
OLOID
OLOID is a Sunnyvale, California software company building passwordless, biometric identity and access for the 1.8 billion deskless and frontline workers who rarely sit at a desk or carry a company laptop. Its cloud platform lets factory, hospital, retail and pharmaceutical workers authenticate with their face, an NFC or RFID badge, or a QR code on shared devices and doors, without new hardware, while plugging into existing HRIS, SSO and physical access control systems. In 2025 OLOID extended into agentic identity with AURA, an AI identity-assurance agent that verifies employees in real time during help-desk requests like password resets and account unlocks.
STRIVR
STRIVR is a Santa Clara workforce-performance company that began by putting Stanford quarterbacks in virtual reality and now puts AI on the factory floor. After pioneering enterprise VR training for Fortune 1000 giants like Walmart, Verizon and Bank of America, STRIVR has shifted from preparing people for work to guiding them inside the flow of work - building hands-free, smart-glasses AI that detects and corrects operational mistakes in real time and turns expert know-how into instant visual instructions.
Clair
Clair is a New York-based embedded fintech that lets employees access wages they have already earned before payday, at no cost to their employer. Built directly into payroll and workforce-management platforms like Gusto and TriNet, Clair offers no-interest, non-recourse wage advances backed by partner bank Pathward, N.A. The company positions itself as a compliance-first alternative to payday lenders, aiming to break the traditional two-week pay cycle for America's frontline workforce.
SparkPlug
SparkPlug is a San Francisco-based incentive management platform that turns frontline retail and restaurant employees into a brand's most effective sales force. By integrating directly with point-of-sale systems, it automates sales contests, goals, and commissions - often funded by the brands and vendors whose products those employees sell - and pays rewards out automatically. The company works with thousands of retail locations and hundreds of brand partners, betting that the people closest to the customer are the most underused influence in physical commerce.
Humand
Humand is a mobile-first, all-in-one HR platform built for the 2.7 billion deskless and frontline workers who have never had a proper digital work home. Founded in 2020 by Nicolas Benenzon and Geronimo Maspero, the platform combines 30+ HR modules - from internal communications and payroll to performance reviews and AI-powered automation - into a single app. With 1.6 million workers across 1,500+ organizations in 51 countries, and a $66M Series A raised in February 2026 co-led by Kaszek and Goodwater Capital, Humand is positioning itself as the operating system for the world's largest workforce segment.
MaintainX
MaintainX is a mobile-first, AI-powered maintenance and asset management platform (CMMS/EAM) used by frontline industrial teams to replace paper work orders, prevent equipment downtime, and run safer, more predictable operations. Founded in 2018 and headquartered in San Francisco, it serves 11,000+ companies and manages over 11 million assets across manufacturing, facilities, food & beverage and distribution.