Ethos

Human intelligence on demand

EthosMay 6, 2026

Human intelligence on demand

Ethos launch preview
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B2C<500KExplainerSeries AB2BGlobalUSVertical AIFunding announcementFounder-led

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Ethos is a London-based expert network that uses an AI voice agent to onboard professionals and match them with paid work, ranging from one-off expert calls and research surveys to AI model training and fractional or full-time roles. Rather than relying on the form-based job-title profiles used by incumbents like GLG, Third Bridge, and Alphasights, Ethos interviews experts by voice to capture sub-specializations and skills that titles miss , then lets clients query the network in natural language for needs as specific as doctors who have published on a particular subject or operators who built finance automation at a top-tier-backed startup. The launch coincides with a $22.75M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz, with General Catalyst, XTX Markets, Evantic Capital, and Common Magic also participating. Ethos was founded in 2024 by James Lo, previously at McKinsey and SoftBank where he worked on the WeWork and Arm transformations, and Daniel Mankowitz, a former DeepMind research scientist whose work included AlphaDev, the AlphaCode and MuZero lines, and YouTube video compression. The pitch to experts is a counter-narrative to AI-driven layoffs, framing knowledge as a recurring revenue stream rather than something to be automated away. For founders, investors, and operators, the relevance is twofold. On the demand side, Ethos says hedge funds, private equity firms, foundational AI labs, and enterprise consultancies are already paying, with the company taking 30% or more per project , riding a tailwind from labs spending heavily to map every economically valuable profession for model training and product feedback. On the supply side, the company reports roughly 35,000 people joining each week through invitations , which sets up the core question this round will test, whether voice-captured expertise produces materially better matches than the form-driven incumbents at a scale large clients will commit to.

Comments (9)

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Priya NadkarniMay 6, 2026

Tweet copy got cut off mid-sentence right before the punchline. Nothing says Series A like a broken https link in the announcement.

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Kostas BerberidisMay 6, 2026

So it's Mechanical Turk with a LinkedIn premium subscription. I am cautiously intrigued.

F
Fernanda QuirogaMay 6, 2026

ok wait, the AI training labeling angle is the actual moat here. Expert calls is the wedge, RLHF data is the wallet.

A
Annika LindeqvistMay 6, 2026

Going from MuZero to running a marketplace for fractional consulting calls is quite the career arc. Respect the pivot energy.

T
Tomi AdebayoMay 6, 2026

How are you handling vetting at scale? Every expert marketplace dies the moment someone with a fake PhD ranks #1 in dermatology.

W
Wenxi LoMay 6, 2026

Curious about the matching layer. Embedding-based retrieval over self-reported expertise tags or something more structured under the hood?

R
raffiMay 6, 2026

Any API for programmatic access to the expert pool, or is this gated behind a sales call for the next 18 months?

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Margot VinterMay 6, 2026

Take rate question: are experts getting 80/20 or are we doing the Uber thing where it quietly drifts to 60/40 by Series B?

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Deshaun OkaforMay 6, 2026

Building something adjacent in the expert-data space and honestly the positioning here is sharp. The 'recurring income' framing does a lot of work.