Sona raises £34bn Series B to bring AI to the frontline economy
The AI platform for real economy businesses, has turned what was a ten-year product vision into a one-year execution plan.
Sona, with its core products already powering scheduling, HR, payroll and other business-critical workflows, is rapidly evolving into the operational foundation that these organisations run on - a platform providing the infrastructure, collaborative agents and AI environment they rely on to power their entire business.
Sona has raised £35.1 million in Series B funding led by N47, with participation from existing investors Felicis, Northzone, Gradient, and Italian Founders Fund, bringing its total funding to over £78 million.
The round will accelerate Sona’s expansion into the United States and bring forward a decade of planned platform capabilities into customers’ hands within a matter of months.
The only software a frontline organisation needs
Real-economy industries - from hospitality and retail to healthcare and logistics - represent hundreds of millions of workers and a multi-billion-pound software market.
Yet these businesses typically rely on a wide range of disconnected legacy systems.
Sona’s AI-powered forecasting and scheduling enables businesses such as Popeyes and Tao Group to better manage staffing, ensuring they have not only the right number of people, but those best suited to each shift working at the busiest times.
This is combined with Sona’s labour AI platform, which uses real-time data on bookings, revenue, weather and every shift ever worked - alongside any other factor that may affect a business, from box office takings to road closures - to build bottom-up models that continuously evolve.
These models predict not only what will happen but, based on historical productivity, what optimal operations look like and where improvements can be made.
This removes the need for traditional time-and-motion studies, which are often expensive and inaccurate.
Together, this helps increase sales and improve customer experience, while delivering multi-million-pound labour savings at a time of rising costs and competition.
Because Sona acts as the primary system of record for these businesses - spanning scheduling, HR, payroll and business intelligence - it is also the natural foundation on which to build bespoke agent-driven applications.
Sona has recently launched Forge, an enterprise AI application builder that allows organisations to create custom software using AI, automatically and securely deployed and fully integrated with their core data, analytics and reporting systems.
This enables businesses to adopt best-in-class solutions for standard functions, while building tailored software for the areas that make them unique.
“Every other enterprise software category has been transformed by AI, but the tools managing the world’s largest workforce are still fundamentally the same systems that were built 20 years ago,” said Steffen Wulff Petersen, co-founder and CEO of Sona.
“We had a ten-year plan. AI has turned it into a one-year plan. The old SaaS model delivered one-size-fits-all applications that companies had to adapt to.
“The next generation provides the infrastructure and agentic layer that organisations build on, giving them the ability to create exactly the software their business needs.
“That is what Sona is becoming for the frontline economy.”
“In a global market supporting billions of workers, AI presents a unique opportunity to replace outdated frontline tools and introduce a new way of operating across the real economy,” said Matthew Cowan, General Partner at N47.
“Sona has developed a leading, end-to-end AI-native product for workforce management, with best-in-class capabilities that position it as the operational foundation these organisations run on. We are delighted to partner with Steffen, Ben and Oli in leading this round as Sona continues its journey towards global category leadership.”
About Sona
Sona is an AI platform for frontline enterprises, helping large organisations run more efficient operations at scale while delivering better service. Designed with AI at its core, it combines regulated workforce infrastructure — including scheduling, HR, payroll and compliance — with an operational data layer that organisations use to build the software they need. Headquartered in London, with a growing presence in New York, Sona is backed by N47, Felicis, Northzone, Gradient and others.
For more information: sona.ai