workforce
(7)
QuestionPro
How a computer-science side project became a bootstrapped survey empire - no venture money, millions of users, and a stubborn belief that research should be cheap enough for anyone to run.
Relevance AI
Relevance AI is a platform for building and managing an AI workforce - teams of specialized AI agents that carry out real business work without human headcount. Founded in Sydney in 2020, the company lets operations teams, not just engineers, design multi-agent systems on a no-code canvas to run sales, marketing, research, support and back-office processes end to end. It raised a $24M Series B in May 2025 led by Bessemer Venture Partners, bringing total funding to roughly $37M, and counts Activision, Qualified and SafetyCulture among its customers.
Laborup
Laborup is a Knoxville, Tennessee startup building an AI-powered recruiting platform for America's skilled industrial workforce - the machinists, welders, and maintenance techs that keep factories running. Founded in 2024 by former Stanford AI researcher Tasimba 'Simba' Jonga, it uses voice-first AI agents to interview and profile blue-collar workers in minutes, then matches employers to a vetted network of thousands of tradespeople. The company pitches itself as the 'LinkedIn of manufacturing,' promising faster time-to-fill, lower cost-per-hire, and better retention, and has raised roughly $7.7M in total funding.
Jobcase, Inc.
Jobcase is a Cambridge-based social platform built for the workers most job sites overlook - hourly, frontline and blue-collar Americans. With more than 110 million registered members and roughly 20 million monthly actives, it pairs a community forum and resume tools with machine-learning job matching, earning rankings among the largest U.S. online career destinations. Founded by Fred Goff and Tony Deigh out of the wreckage of an AI hedge fund, Jobcase makes money from employer advertising and recruiting partnerships while keeping the core product free for job seekers.
Clipboard Health
Clipboard Health (now branded as Clipboard) is a San Francisco-based two-sided marketplace that matches nurses, CNAs, and allied healthcare professionals with shifts at understaffed hospitals, nursing homes, and post-acute facilities. Founded in 2016 by Wei Deng, the company has grown into a healthcare unicorn with a 1,600-person team and a network of more than a million qualified professionals.
RemoFirst
RemoFirst is an Employer of Record platform that lets companies hire, pay, and manage full-time employees and contractors in 185+ countries without setting up local entities. Founded in 2021 in San Francisco, it competes with Deel and Rippling by undercutting them on price - starting at $199 per employee per month - and handling payroll, taxes, benefits, equipment, and visas on its customers' behalf.
Zipline
Zipline (formerly Retail Zipline) is a San Francisco-based SaaS platform built to fix the broken chain between retail headquarters and the store floor. It bundles communication, task management, audits, and training into one operations platform used by chains like Sephora, Gap, Rite Aid, AEO, LUSH, and L.L.Bean to run thousands of stores in sync.