Firstwork, a Y Combinator alumnus, has raised $15 million in a Series A round led by Earlybird Venture Capital, bringing its total funding to $20 million. Legion VC, Deel Ventures, Gradient, and Y Combinator joined the round, as did SOMA Capital, 468 Capital, and Houghton Street Ventures. The startup uses AI agents to cover the gap between a job offer and a first shift, when many frontline hires drop out. The agents text or call candidates, chase missing documents, arrange training, and follow up after shifts. They work with existing HR, payroll, and screening software. Founder Vardhan Kapoor, a former Deliveroo head of strategy and operations, started the company in 2024. Firstwork has about 45 employees and is setting up a London headquarters to serve European clients.

Palma.ai has raised $1.8 million in pre-seed funding to build governance infrastructure for enterprise AI agents. The round was led by D11Z, with participation from Plug and Play Ventures, Deel, Scale Now Ventures and angel investors from Cisco and Deel. The company addresses security challenges as enterprises deploy AI agents that can take actions within corporate systems, beyond simply generating content. Palma's platform routes agent-to-tool requests through a governance layer that evaluates permissions and policies in real-time. The system works across multiple AI platforms including Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Gemini. It allows organisations to set thresholds for automated actions, require human approval for certain requests, and maintain audit trails without replacing existing security infrastructure. D11Z and Plug and Play are both investors and customers, using Palma internally for their teams. The funding will expand engineering and go-to-market teams as the company targets larger organisations deploying AI agents.

Deel has partnered with Mesh to secure stablecoin payouts for its global workforce. Workers choosing stablecoin payments on Deel now verify wallet ownership through Mesh before funds are transferred, across more than 300 supported wallets and exchanges. The integration addresses the risk of irreversible payments to incorrect addresses. Mesh verifies ownership in seconds, allowing Deel to deliver funds directly to verified accounts without manual address entry. "When that moves onchain, verification isn't a feature, it's the foundation," said Bam Azizi, co-founder and CEO of Mesh. Thierry Edde, head of crypto at Deel, said stablecoin payouts only scale if security is prioritised. Deel serves over 40,000 companies worldwide and operates across 150 countries.