Future of Work startup ecosystem
We track 20 organisations in this sector across 6+ countries.
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Ada Ventures
Ada Ventures is a London-based pre-seed and seed fund founded in 2019 by Check (Francesca) Warner MBE and Matt Bradley, focused on backing diverse founders building breakthrough technology across climate equity, economic empowerment, and healthy ageing. The firm closed its first fund at $50 million and raised a second fund of £63 million in March 2024, bringing total assets under management to over £100 million. Ada distinguishes itself as Europe's first VC fund explicitly designed to address underrepresentation in the startup ecosystem, investing £250K–£1M per company and running a scout and angel programme to surface talent overlooked by traditional networks.
Attensi
Attensi is an Oslo-headquartered gamified training platform used by organizations in more than 150 countries to train employees on skills such as sales performance, onboarding, leadership development, and compliance. Its product suite includes Attensi AI and Attensi RealTalk for conversational practice, alongside tools like Attensi Impact, Fast, Engage, Manager, Insights, and Creator, serving customers including Starbucks, London Business School, Hiscox, and Circle K. Co-founded and led by CEO Trond Aas, the company also has offices in London, Boston, Cologne, and Gothenburg.
Brain Bar 2026
A future-focused festival in Budapest exploring how technology, science, and society intersect. Draws 5,000+ attendees including founders, researchers, and policymakers. Known for provocative talks on AI, biotech, and the future of work. Tickets start from EUR 100.
Brigad
Brigad is a French gig-economy marketplace connecting hospitality businesses with self-employed freelance staff such as waiters, chefs, and bartenders for short-term missions. Businesses can post a mission in minutes and only pay for completed work, while freelancers choose their own hours, get paid weekly, and have Brigad handle their contracts, invoices, and tax returns. The platform, active since 2016 in both France and the UK, reports more than 23,000 freelancers, over 12,000 businesses served, and 300,000+ missions accepted. Legally BRIGAD SAS, it is led by president Florent Malbranche.
BrightCap Ventures
Founded in 2018 by Georgi Mitov and Elina Halatcheva (joined by Managing Partner Diana Stefanova), BrightCap is a pre-seed and seed VC based in Sofia. Its second fund (BrightCap II) closed at approximately €47.5M in 2025, with the European Investment Fund as a cornerstone LP, and is notable as the first vehicle to blend Recovery and Resilience Facility capital from both Bulgaria and Romania in a single cross-border fund. Managing partners bring operating backgrounds from exits at VMware (Aviaso) and Honeywell (Sciant) rather than traditional finance. BrightCap invests €400K–€3M tickets with sector focus on future of work, digital health, and fintech; the portfolio includes Software Group, Pliant, and FITE.
Cristian Grossmann
Co-founder and CEO of Beekeeper, the Zurich-based frontline workforce platform he co-founded in 2012 with Flavio Pfaffhauser. Grossmann led Beekeeper through a Series C in 2021 backed by Atomico, Alpana Ventures, and Swiss Post, bringing total funding to over $100 million. The platform scales to over 1,000 enterprise customers including Marriott, Hilton, and Heathrow Airport, serving workers in manufacturing, hospitality, retail, and logistics without corporate email addresses.
Daphni
Daphni is a Paris-based venture capital firm founded in 2015 by Pierre-Eric Leibovici, managing over €500 million in assets under management across three funds. The firm targets seed and Series A investments in European technology startups, writing cheques from €500K to €10M, and distinguishes itself through a community-driven model that engages its network of founders, operators, and investors as active contributors to portfolio companies. Daphni's third fund, Daphni Blue, began its first close at €200 million in March 2025, backed by LPs including Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, Bpifrance, and the European Investment Fund. Notable portfolio companies include Back Market, Swile, and Epic, with three unicorns, one IPO, and 22 acquisitions across the portfolio.
Eleven Ventures
Founded in 2012 by Daniel Tomov, Dilyan Dimitrov, Ivaylo Simov, and Jon Bradford, Eleven Ventures is one of Bulgaria's oldest and most active pre-seed and seed funds, with 170+ investments across South-Eastern Europe over 13 years. Its third fund (Eleven Fund III) closed at €60M in January 2022 backed by the EIF and 60+ individual LPs, targeting fintech, healthcare, future of work, sustainable food, and ecomtech. Notable exits and portfolio names include Payhawk, Quantive (formerly Gtmhub), SMSBump (acquired by Yotpo), Dronamics, and NitroPack. The first fund was listed on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange in 2020 via a spin-out called Eleven Capital.
Euan Blair
Founder and CEO of Multiverse, the apprenticeship-focused alternative to university that reached unicorn status. He started the company to widen access to high-quality careers through applied training rather than degrees.
Founders4Schools
Founders4Schools was founded in 2013 by Sherry Coutu CBE as a charity connecting UK students with founders and employers to improve employability and bridge the skills gap. In 2017 it launched Workfinder, an app that lets young people search for and apply to work-experience placements at fast-growing companies. The organisation operates at the intersection of the startup ecosystem and education, complementing Coutu's work at the ScaleUp Institute.
Huddly
Huddly is an Oslo-based hardware company, founded in 2013, that designs AI-powered video conferencing cameras and meeting room systems, including the Huddly C1 and multi-camera Crew system with built-in audio. Its on-device AI adapts the video and audio experience so remote participants are better seen and heard in hybrid meetings on platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Google Meet. The company has a global presence across the US, EMEA, and APAC with worldwide distribution.
Hugo Lassiège
Co-founder and CTO of Malt, leading the technology behind the freelance marketplace he started with Vincent Huguet in 2013.
Icebreaker.vc
Icebreaker.vc was founded in 2017 in Helsinki by Aleksi Partanen, Lasse Lehtinen, Riku Sepälä, and Teddie Wardi to address the pre-seed funding gap in Finland, Estonia, and Sweden. The firm targets idea-stage companies with tickets of €150,000–€1.5 million, with Fund III targeting €30 million. Portfolio standouts include Hoxhunt (raised $40M Series B), Aibidia ($28M Series B), and ReOrbit (€45M Series A). Icebreaker is known for its diversity focus, backing 3.5× more immigrant founders than the Finnish VC average.
LAUNCHub Ventures
Founded in 2012 by Lyuben Belov and partners, LAUNCHub Ventures is Sofia's largest dedicated early-stage VC, currently deploying its third fund which closed oversubscribed at €74M in late 2021 (first close €44M). The fund invests at pre-seed and seed stages with ticket sizes of €300K–€3M, backing founders across South-Eastern and Central-Eastern Europe. Sector focus spans fintech, proptech, future of work, devtools, health tech, and enterprise software; portfolio includes Quantive (strategy platform), OfficeRnD (flex-space SaaS), FintechOS, and Giraffe360. Seventy-five percent of portfolio companies have raised follow-on rounds, with aggregate follow-on capital exceeding €400M.
Rahaf Harfoush
Strategist, digital anthropologist, and bestselling author who studies the intersection of technology, culture, and human behaviour, including the book 'Hustle and Float'. She is Executive Director of the Red Thread Institute of Digital Culture and a confirmed main-stage speaker at the Oslo Business Forum 2026.
Sara Polak
Archaeologist turned technology strategist and futurist who writes and speaks about artificial intelligence, the future of work, and how emerging technology reshapes society. A confirmed speaker at FrontKon 2026 in Prague.
SuperCharger Ventures
SuperCharger Ventures runs a 12-week, equity-free EdTech and Future of Work accelerator programme in Malta, co-funded by Malta Enterprise. Up to 15 startups per cohort receive mentoring from 40+ local stakeholders, access to grants and soft loans of €300,000–€1.5 million, and connections to a global investor network. The Malta programme is one of several international hubs operated by SuperCharger alongside London, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and Rwanda.
Unleash World 2026
The world's leading HR and workforce technology conference and expo, organized by UNLEASH Group at the Paris Convention Center on 20-22 October 2026. Three days across seven conference stages, summits, an exhibition and startup showcases covering AI, skills, workforce strategy, reward, people analytics and the future of work, drawing thousands of senior HR leaders and HR-tech buyers.
Viktor
Viktor is an AI coworker platform that lives inside Slack and Microsoft Teams and executes business workflows end-to-end rather than only suggesting text. Connected to thousands of tools, it autonomously generates reports, builds dashboards, writes code, manages ad accounts, and runs data analysis on behalf of teams, positioning itself as an "AI hire" rather than a tool. Founded in 2023 by former Meta engineers Fryderyk Wiatrowski and Peter Albert, the company is headquartered in Warsaw with a second office in Munich. After a public launch in February 2026 it reached a €12.9 million revenue run rate within 10 weeks and is used by more than 2,000 organisations. In May 2026 Viktor raised a $75 million (€64.7 million) Series A led by Accel — reported as the largest Series A ever raised by a Polish technology company — with participation from Bek Ventures, Kaya VC, Inovo VC, and Tenacity Capital, alongside angels including Slack co-founders Stewart Butterfield and Cal Henderson and Synthesia CEO Victor Riparbelli.
Vincent Huguet
Co-founder and CEO of Malt, the freelance marketplace connecting companies with independent professionals across Europe. He scaled it into the continent's leading freelancing platform.
