Ethos, a London-based artificial intelligence platform that matches skilled professionals with work opportunities, has raised US$22.75 million in Series A funding as investors back new ways to identify human expertise in an AI-driven labor market.
The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from General Catalyst, which led Ethos’ 2024 seed round. XTX and Evantic also participated in the financing.
Ethos was founded by James Lo and Daniel Mankowitz in 2024. It uses AI to evaluate expertise through voice conversations and existing portfolios of work, including academic papers, code repositories and professional content. The company said AI has made it easier to generate CVs and job applications, but harder for organizations to identify genuine expertise.
“A CV is a poor proxy for what someone is truly capable of,” said James Lo, co-founder and chief executive of Ethos. “Ethos helps people to see the full shape of their expertise and where it fits in an AI-transformed economy - acting as their agent, opening doors they didn’t know existed, and giving companies a far more precise way to find the people they actually need.”
The platform matches users with opportunities across consulting, expert calls, market research, AI data projects and full-time roles. Ethos said more than 35,000 experts are joining the platform each week across accounting, banking, consulting, law, technology and healthcare, as well as skilled trades including electricians and plumbers.
The company said the average expert on Ethos earns £4,500 in additional income each month, while the top 10% of earners make more than £7,000 a month. Since January, the number of experts earning income through the platform has increased sixfold.
“AI is reshaping the labor market faster than our tools for valuing human expertise can keep up. Ethos is built to change that,” Lo said.
“Knowledge is our most precious resource, yet for too long the expertise inside people’s heads has been invisible to the economy,” said Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, president and managing director of General Catalyst.
“Ethos changes the game by capturing the true value of what people know and connecting it to the opportunities that need it most,” she said.
“Our Seed philosophy is simple: back exceptional leaders early,” zu Fürstenberg said. “From our first conversations with James and Daniel, it was clear they were visionaries who understood exactly where the future of work was heading and had the conviction to build for it.”
Ethos was founded by a team from Google DeepMind, McKinsey and SoftBank. Its clients include AI labs, investment funds and corporates seeking access to human expertise on demand.