Ando Raises $4 Million to Scale AI Platform for Hourly Workforce Scheduling

New updates have been reported about Ando.

Ando has secured a $4 million seed round to accelerate its AI-driven infrastructure for the global hourly workforce, with Slow Ventures leading the investment alongside several venture backers. The company plans to use the capital to enhance its demand forecasting and scheduling engine and to expand deployments with large enterprise customers that rely heavily on hourly labor.

Positioning itself as a core system for hourly staffing, Ando applies AI to predict location-level demand and then generates schedules that reflect real employees’ constraints, such as required hours, childcare, school commitments, and second jobs. Management reports more than 90% daily forecasting accuracy to date, a roadmap toward 15-minute interval forecasting, and a 100% conversion rate from presentation to pilot to paid contracts, with full customer retention.

For operators facing high turnover and costly understaffing, Ando’s customers have in some cases seen $60,000 to $80,000 in additional revenue per site, though outcomes vary and are not solely attributable to the platform. CEO and founder Paul Wellons argues that existing tools ignore the realities of workers juggling multiple income streams, making schedule volatility a major driver of attrition and operational disruption.

By treating workers’ time with the same rigor as other operating inputs, Ando aims to reduce the roughly 150% annual turnover common in hourly roles and the associated replacement and training costs that can exceed $5,800 per employee. The company is targeting a U.S. market of about 80 million hourly workers and 146 billion annual work hours, where misaligned staffing is estimated to cost retailers thousands of dollars per week in missed sales.

Lead investor Sam Lessin of Slow Ventures says Ando’s AI-native approach positions it as foundational infrastructure for how hourly work will be organized in the future, amid a more flexible labor pool and improving machine-learning capabilities. Ando also draws on an advisory group spanning hospitality, technology, and labor policy, including former Panera Brands CEO Niren Chaudhary and former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, as it builds out its product and go-to-market strategy with enterprise clients.