Kinfolk lands £7m to automate HR via agents in Slack and Teams
This article covers Kinfolk, an hrtech startup based in London, which has raised £7m in a growth funding round to advance its agentic AI platform for HR and people operations. The funding will support development of autonomous agents that execute HR tasks inside Slack and Microsoft Teams, targeting HR and people teams in large organisations and enterprise customers.
Kinfolk, an hrtech startup based in London, has raised £7m in a growth funding round to advance its agentic AI platform for HR and people operations — software that moves beyond chatbots to execute tasks inside Slack and Microsoft Teams, and aims to replace legacy ticketing systems that many HR teams still rely on.
Why it matters
HR and people teams are under pressure to handle more with flat or shrinking headcounts while employee expectations for fast, accurate service rise. Many organisations still rely on IT-style ticketing tools that were not built for people workflows, or basic chatbots that can point to answers but cannot complete work. Kinfolk’s approach — autonomous AI agents that perform actions across systems — promises to reduce that friction and free HR staff for higher-value work.
The company says its platform can autonomously handle up to 80% of Tier 0–1 employee requests and that customers recover roughly 45 days of HR time per year. It also reported 5x annual recurring revenue growth in 2025, signalling rapid uptake among early enterprise customers.
Inside the product
Kinfolk positions itself as an agentic AI layer that sits in messaging tools and orchestration pipelines, performing tasks such as drafting documents, updating HRIS records, and managing lifecycle changes across systems. Rather than surfacing knowledge or handing work back to humans, its agents execute workflows directly inside Slack or Teams.
Customers cited by the company include Deliveroo, Hudl and RetailNext. Deliveroo is a large food-delivery platform with high-volume employee operations; Hudl provides video and performance tools to sports teams and needs quick onboarding and access management; RetailNext supplies in-store analytics to retailers and faces frequent employee lifecycle changes. Kinfolk says these customers have either displaced or augmented tools such as ServiceNow, Zendesk and Jira with its platform.
Who are the investors?
Who are the investors?
The company says the round was led by AlbionVC, with participation from PROfounders Capital and existing backers Ascension and Emerge. Prominent angels took part as well, including Tony Jamous, founder and executive chairman of OysterHR. Kinfolk told reporters the financing brings total funding to date to about $8.5m and that proceeds will be used to accelerate agentic capabilities, expand enterprise readiness, extend into adjacent workflows such as payroll and IT, and scale go-to-market teams.
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.
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Founder perspective
Jeet Mukerji, co-founder and CEO, frames the product as a direct response to the limits of existing tooling and chatbots. 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.
Mukerji and co-founder Kim Hellbom previously worked on enterprise AI products at Beamery, experience the company says underpins its focus on workflow automation and enterprise integration.
The bigger picture
Kinfolk’s raise highlights a broader trend among UK and European startups to move from conversational AI toward agentic systems that act on behalf of users in enterprise contexts. HR remains a pragmatic starting point because employee requests are high-volume, repetitive and tied to clear system actions. The deal also suggests ongoing appetite from hrtech investors for startups that promise measurable time and cost savings rather than purely informational AI assistants.
The outcome will depend on enterprise concerns such as data governance, auditability and integration with payroll and HRIS vendors. If Kinfolk can demonstrate reliable controls and compliance, its approach could accelerate a wave of automation across people operations in the UK and beyond.
The funding comes amid growing investment in enterprise AI across the UK and Europe, where startups are increasingly focused on embedding generative and agentic capabilities into core operational software rather than only customer-facing chatbots.
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