AI HR tech start-up Dosen has secured $2.3m in an oversubscribed pre-seed funding round led by Affinity Ventures with participation from Unshackled Ventures and Fuel Ventures.
Los Angeles-based Dosen was founded by Irish entrepreneurs Ronan Wall, Victor Burke and Cian McCarthy, and its employee alignment platform is intended to combat "quiet quitting" at work, which is estimated to be a $500bn problem for businesses globally.
The company cites studies showing that 95% of employees don't know their company's strategy or goals, 85% feel no sense of purpose in their work, and 60% admit to doing only the bare minimum and feeling psychologically detached from their jobs.
The idea for Dosen came from the founders' first-hand experience of navigating misalignment within large-scale organisations.
They observed how disconnected teams, unclear goals, and a lack of shared purpose led to stagnating performance and high turnover.
The Dosen platform provides training and to align employee purpose with company strategy. It uses AI to match organisational inputs such as structure, goals and roles with employee inputs like personal values, skills, purpose.
The system then builds personalised learning journeys for employees, real-time alignment between individual learning paths and evolving company goals, and scientifically-backed return on investment, using proven methodologies to maximise impact for both businesses and their staff.
Early customer feedback points to measurable improvements in employee engagement, performance, and retention.
The capital raised will be used to accelerate product development, add staff and expand Dosen's market presence among companies with over 100 employees navigating organisational change.
“We’re thrilled by the overwhelming support we’ve received, exceeding our initial round size by 50%. Dosen is designed specifically to help HR teams and senior leaders solve the biggest challenge they face right now, underperformance or loss of their top talent," said Wall.
"This investment allows us to reach more people and companies and put an end to the trend of ‘quiet quitting’."
Wall previously co-founded Matchbook.com and served as online COO at Paddy Power, helping to scale the company from 100 to 5,000 employees. He also held a senior executive role at Ticketmaster.
Burke founded both Wilde Irish Gin and ICP Digital Media, while McCarthy led Pina Gold and Base Influence.
“This pre-seed round validates our mission to redefine workplace learning. By automating the personalisation of training at scale, we’re excited to make a significant impact for organisations and the people within them," said Burke.
McCarthy added: “The most exciting thing about Dosen is that the product is in its infancy and we see a huge opportunity to advance it further, driving even greater levels of employee purpose and company performance after this round.”
Photo: (l-r) Victor Burke, Cian McCarthy and Ronan Wall. (Pic: Dosen)
