Iceland's 50skills raises $6M for HR agents that build their own agents
What's the deal? Iceland-based HR automation startup 50skillsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has raised $6 million in a Series A round co-led by Frumtak VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Swiss Post VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Avant, and DRD Investments. The platform lets customers describe their processes in plain language, after which an agent builds the workflow — and spins up further agents to screen candidates, send policy alerts, or draft onboarding emails.
Why now? The company raised $2.6 million in seed funding from Frumtak Ventures in May 2022 and went nearly three years without seeking more. Founder Kristján Freyr Kristjánsson said the raise followed a jump in usage: customers automated more than one million actions last year and six million in the first months of this year.
Who's behind it? Kristjánsson never set out to build an HR company. While at Icelandic fintech Meniga, he struggled to connect systems and make workflows run as intended. "There was a need both to design processes and to see how they worked in practice," he said.
What's the endgame? The 20-person team, spread across Iceland, Stockholm, and the UK, is hiring in the Nordics and plans to expand into the US and Benelux markets, though hiring there hasn't started.
What's the money for? Growth. "What we're really trying to do is to help the user give some context about their own business and processes so that the agent can assist in building and streamlining those areas," Kristjánsson said, noting the platform draws on several AI models.
The signal: The round sits in the middle of the pack by size, but 50skills enters a crowded, well-funded field — Personio is valued at $8.5 billion, Rippling at $16.8 billion, and HiBob has raised $565 million. With the global HR technology market projected to grow from $43.66 billion in 2025 to $95.95 billion by 2034, board chair Ásthildur Otharsdóttir argued the winners will be "those that bring people, workflows and AI agents together safely and effectively."
Image credit: 50skills
