Zendo, a productivity tech startup building foundational infrastructure for startup workflows, has raised $2,310,525 in a pre-seed funding round led by Fly Ventures, Octopus Ventures, Pact VC, and several prominent angel investors. Co-founded by Jade Batstone and Drew Barrett, the company aims to reinvent how early-stage startups organize, operate, and scale by delivering powerful, AI-native internal tools that adapt as teams grow.

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Solving the Chaos of Early-Stage Operations

In the first year of a startup’s life, chaos is the default. Teams juggle a patchwork of tools, spreadsheets, and Notion docs to manage onboarding, task tracking, customer success, product decisions, and investor updates. But this ad hoc approach becomes unsustainable fast and many startups burn out not from lack of ambition, but from internal complexity.

That’s where Zendo comes in. The platform offers modular, AI-automated internal operations tools that allow startups to set up scalable, flexible workflows without hiring entire ops teams. Think of it as an “AI chief of staff” for companies with fewer than 50 people.

Instead of duct-taping together dozens of SaaS tools, Zendo gives startups a unified command center for everything from onboarding flows and daily standups to compliance tracking and investor comms all supercharged by intelligent automations.

“Startups need to move fast, but speed means nothing if your foundation crumbles at scale,” said co-founder Jade Batstone. “Zendo helps teams move fast and build well.”

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Why Workflow Infrastructure Is Having a Moment

The rise of distributed teams, AI agents, and low-code tools has created a new expectation: early-stage companies should be able to operate like 100-person teams, with 10 people or fewer. But while the external stackproduct, marketing, sales is becoming more sophisticated, the internal stack often lags.

A recent survey by First Round Capital showed that 69% of founders say internal operations become the biggest bottleneck by year two, outpacing hiring, fundraising, or product development.

Zendo taps into this pain point directly by offering founder-friendly, no-code infrastructure that evolves as the company grows. It’s not about building another project management toolit’s about redefining the foundation that early-stage teams operate on.

The internal stack is your startup’s nervous system. Neglect it, and you’ll scale dysfunction. Build it deliberately, and you unlock leverage. Zendo’s approach shows how startups can embed automation and operational clarity from day one turning internal chaos into a competitive advantage. Founders who treat operations like a productnot an afterthoughtare the ones who scale sustainably.

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Targeting the First 100 Hires

Zendo isn’t trying to be a mass-market enterprise platform. Its sweet spot is clear: startups between 3–100 employees, where every operational decision either accelerates growth or multiplies friction. By giving these lean teams AI tools typically reserved for mid-sized companies, Zendo helps them leapfrog complexity traps and build operational muscle early.

The platform includes features like:

• Dynamic onboarding sequences for new hires, contractors, and collaborators
  
• Integrated documentation that updates in real time with team changes
  
• Automated reporting for internal and external stakeholders
  
• Smart reminders and compliance nudges built into everyday workflows
  
• Customizable modules for product teams, sales ops, and people functions
  

All of this is delivered in a clean, no-code interface with AI assistants that can create new workflows, summarize updates, and detect inefficiencies in how teams work.

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Where the Funds Will Go

With the $2.3 million pre-seed capital, Zendo plans to:

• Grow its core engineering and AI teams to accelerate feature development
  
• Refine its GTM motion through direct founder outreach and ecosystem partnerships
  
• Expand early access to high-growth startups in Europe and North America
  
• Invest in integrations with major SaaS tools like Slack, Notion, Linear, and GSuite
  
• Build a content hub and playbooks around startup operations best practices
  

The company is already working with a closed group of early adopters and plans to open its self-serve platform to the public in the coming months.

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About the Investors

• Fly Ventures is known for backing technically ambitious founders at the earliest stages, with a strong portfolio in AI infrastructure.
  
• Octopus Ventures, one of Europe’s most active early-stage firms, brings strategic support in go-to-market and expansion.
  
• Pact VC focuses on impact-driven and operationally disruptive startups, aligning with Zendo’s goal to democratize operations.
  
• Several angel investors from the SaaS and AI ecosystem also participated, bringing deep operational experience to the cap table.
  

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What’s Next for Zendo

The future of work isn’t just remote or asyncit’s automated, adaptive, and radically operationally efficient. Zendo is positioning itself as the go-to platform for this new paradigm, where early-stage companies no longer need to trade speed for structure.

As AI-native tooling becomes the default expectation, Zendo’s bet is simple but bold: Startups should be able to scale like enterprises, without the bureaucracy.

With new funding, deep founder empathy, and a growing market of startups drowning in operational debt, Zendo is ready to ship the internal tools tomorrow’s breakout companies need today.