London-based startup Ethos announced a $22.75 million Series A funding round on May 6, 2026, led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with participation from General Catalyst, XTX Markets, Evantic Capital, and Common Magic. The company is building an AI-driven expert network that uses voice-based onboarding to better match professionals with businesses seeking specialized knowledge.
Unlike traditional expert platforms such as GLG, Third Bridge, or AlphaSights — which rely on job titles and written forms to profile experts — Ethos uses voice agents to conduct interviews and gather deeper information about a professional’s skills, sub-specializations, and domain knowledge. This richer data set allows the platform to handle more complex client queries, such as identifying doctors who specialize in a particular area and have also published academic papers or have experience in drug development.
Ethos was founded in 2024 by James Lo and Daniel Mankowitz. Lo previously worked at McKinsey and SoftBank, where he was involved in the transformation of companies including WeWork and Arm. Mankowitz worked as an AI researcher at DeepMind, contributing to YouTube’s video compression algorithm, Gemini, and the AlphaDev sorting algorithm.
The company says it is currently onboarding roughly 35,000 experts per week through invitations and reports it is on track for eight-figure annualized revenue, though no specific figure was disclosed. Clients reportedly include top hedge funds, private equity firms, foundational AI labs, and enterprise consulting firms. Ethos takes a fee of 30% or more per project, depending on the scope.
Beyond voice interviews, Ethos also draws on public sources such as blogs, academic papers, and social profiles to build expert profiles. The company has a team of eight and says it intends to keep headcount compact while scaling the platform.
a16z partner Anish Acharya said legacy platforms “only show shallow signals with job titles,” and that voice onboarding allows Ethos to capture more nuanced professional expertise. Lo noted that AI labs actively mapping human talent across industries such as law, health, and finance could serve as a significant growth driver for the platform.
Source: TechCrunch