NextWork Secures $4.45M Seed Round and Sets U.S. Hub in Austin to Scale AI Skills Platform

New updates have been reported about NextWork.

NextWork has raised a $4.45 million Seed round to accelerate its AI skills verification platform and establish Austin, Texas as its U.S. headquarters, signaling a deliberate push into the American market. The round was led by Shakti VC with participation from Cake Ventures and repeat backers including GD1 VC, Blackbird Ventures, Icehouse Ventures, Phase One Ventures, and several angels, underscoring investor conviction in NextWork’s role as an infrastructure layer for AI-era talent assessment.

Positioning itself as a verification layer for AI skills, NextWork enables users to build hands-on AI projects—such as chatbots and automated workflows—and convert them into public, proof-of-work portfolios that employers can trust. This model aims to replace traditional credential-based hiring with outcome-based evaluation, addressing a widening skills and trust gap as AI transforms job roles faster than workers and HR systems can adapt.

Since its 2024 launch, more than 190,000 learners across over 190 countries have used the platform, with about 22% of projects completed by U.S. users, primarily professionals aged 25–35 seeking promotions or career changes. This early traction supports NextWork’s thesis that proof-of-work portfolios can become a core asset for mid-career workers looking to reposition themselves in an AI-driven labor market.

Founder and CEO Amber Winton frames the company’s strategy as realigning learning and employment around the ability to build solutions, rather than collecting degrees or titles that may not reflect actual capability. The company sees AI as expanding what individuals can produce, making verifiable, project-based evidence more critical for both employers seeking productivity and workers seeking mobility.

The new capital will be allocated to U.S. expansion, including building out the Austin headquarters, scaling engineering, and ramping growth hiring to increase platform adoption. For employers, NextWork’s approach could lower hiring risk and time-to-verify for AI-relevant roles, while for learners it provides a structured path to demonstrate job-ready AI skills, as illustrated by users who have parlayed portfolios into role upgrades from non-technical positions into IT and related fields.