Hunt Scanlon Ventures backs millionways, an AI lab reading human behaviour

What's the deal? Hunt Scanlon VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has invested in millionways, a New York-headquartered frontier lab building what it calls a behavioural intelligence layer for AI. The firm, an M&A advisory focused on human capital markets, did not disclose the size of the round.

What's the endgame? millionways has developed a proprietary Large Psychology Model called Thorsten-4, designed to read human signals, motives, communication patterns, and behaviour. Co-founder and chief technology officer Max Weidemann framed the pitch as a shift in AI's focus: "The next leap in AI isn't another model that knows more. It's AI that understands people better."

The model rests on more than a decade of proprietary psychological research and 35 million tagged words of behavioural data. That foundation lets the platform translate human interactions into structured, explainable intelligence, the company says.

Where it's used: The technology is already deployed in the human capital sector across executive hiring, leadership assessment, succession planning, talent management, and organisational decision-making. The company is led by co-founders Martin Cordsmeier and Weidemann.

Why now? The investment lands as AI moves deeper into settings where decision quality, leadership, and trust matter as much as workflow efficiency. Hunt Scanlon sees behavioural intelligence as a new layer of AI infrastructure, giving models the ability to interpret the human dynamics behind communication and decision-making.

For the firm, the deal fits a broader strategy of backing data-driven, AI-powered platforms aimed at reshaping how organisations assess talent and evaluate leadership. "We see the ability to translate human behavior into actionable business intelligence as increasingly important across the human capital markets," said Scott A. Scanlon, chief executive officer and co-founder of Hunt Scanlon Ventures.

The signal: As foundational models grow more commoditised, Hunt Scanlon is betting that context — not raw capability — becomes the differentiator. "The ability to understand the human context behind an interaction becomes more valuable, not less," Scanlon said, casting behavioural intelligence as the next step in AI's evolution toward working alongside human teams.

Image credit: Cydcor