Ethos secures $22.75 million Series A from a16z to revolutionise expert network onboarding
Andreessen Horowitz leads the round for the firm founded by former McKinsey and DeepMind executives, aiming to match specific skills rather than job titles for hedge funds and AI labs.
London-based startup Ethos has announced a $22.75 million Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from General Catalyst, XTX Markets, Evantic Capital, and Common Magic. The capital injection marks the first major external disclosure for the company, which was established in 2024 by James Lo and Daniel Mankowitz.
The firm differentiates itself from traditional expert networks by utilising voice onboarding to capture detailed sub-specialisations that standard job titles often obscure. While legacy platforms typically rely on experts filling out forms based on LinkedIn-style profiles, Ethos employs voice agents to ask a broader set of questions. This approach allows the company to extract nuanced skills and capabilities, enabling clients to search for specific competencies rather than broad categories.
According to the company, this method facilitates complex matching queries that static data cannot support. For instance, Ethos claims it can identify individuals who worked at funded startups solving for finance automation, or doctors who specialise in a specific area while also having published papers on drug development. The firm states it is currently onboarding approximately 35,000 experts weekly, a figure it notes is significantly higher than typical industry benchmarks.
The primary clientele for Ethos includes top hedge funds, private equity firms, leading foundational AI labs, and enterprise consulting organisations. The company charges a per-project fee of 30 per cent or more, depending on the nature of the engagement. Ethos projects eight-figure annualised revenue, though it has not provided specific financial figures to date.
Founders James Lo and Daniel Mankowitz bring extensive backgrounds to the venture, with Lo previously working at McKinsey and Softbank, and Mankowitz serving as an AI researcher at DeepMind. Lo emphasised that the economy is increasingly merging the human and agent economies, noting that clients are seeking specific skills and capabilities rather than just job descriptions. Mankowitz views the economy as a knowledge graph of people, companies, and products that can be matched using appropriate algorithms.
The company attributes its growth to the substantial spending by AI labs to map human talent for model training. Lo described this sector activity as a significant tailwind, noting that these labs are attempting to map out every profession to build professional services in areas such as law, health, finance, and management. Ethos currently employs eight people and aims to maintain a compact team while scaling operations.
