Sona

Sona provides an AI-native workforce management platform used by large, multi-site frontline organisations in hospitality, retail and social care. The product spans demand forecasting, automated scheduling, time and attendance, HR functions such as onboarding, absence management and documentation, payroll calculation and compliance, presented as a single system that connects a customer's existing systems and data to produce insights and recommendations.

The platform's forecasting layer ingests real-time operational data — bookings, revenue, weather, historical shift records and external factors such as box office takings or road closures — and builds models intended to predict demand and identify where operations can be improved. Scheduling is generated automatically to balance labour cost, coverage and compliance. An AI assistant called Raffy explains what is happening in a location, why it matters and what action a manager should take. The company also offers Sona Forge, an app builder for custom workflows on top of the platform.

Sona operates regionally differentiated product ranges for the United Kingdom and the United States. Reported outcomes include labour cost reductions in the range of roughly 1-2% for customers, with Popeyes UK citing a 4% labour cost reduction across UK locations and Salutem Healthcare citing savings of about 1.5% of total payroll and $1.7M in annual workforce savings.

Founding story

Sona's co-founders previously built Catapult, a gig-work platform serving 10,000 frontline workers in retail and hospitality that raised £4.3M. CEO Steffen Wulff Petersen co-founded Lazada, sold to Alibaba for $3.5bn, and was involved in launching HelloFresh, which went on to a €2bn-plus IPO. CTO Ben Dixon engineered Catapult's backend and brings machine learning experience.

Business model

Sona sells a business-to-business software platform to large multi-site employers, positioning itself as workforce infrastructure plus an agentic AI layer on which organisations build the applications their operations require. Go-to-market runs through demos and enterprise sales, with an advisory role created to guide enterprise strategy and go-to-market execution.

Traction

Customer-reported results include Popeyes UK realising more than a 0.8 percentage point labour saving since implementation in July and a 4% labour cost reduction across UK locations; Salutem Healthcare saving about 1.5% of total payroll and $1.7M annually; Liaise reporting 2% of revenue saved in a financial year and 40 hours per week of HR admin time saved; and Paul Bakery reporting 100% app adoption across 33 live locations. Recent enterprise wins cited include Loungers and Signature Senior Lifestyle. Total funding stands at over $100M following the April 2026 Series B.

Latest developments

In April 2026 Sona announced a $45M Series B led by N47 with participation from existing investors Felicis, Northzone, Gradient and Italian Founders Fund, bringing total funding to over $100M. Proceeds are earmarked for US expansion from its New York presence and for platform development, including enhancements to the Sona Forge app builder. Richard Tallboy joined as Chief Information Officer Advisor in a newly created executive advisory role.