Sona

Sona develops an AI-native workforce management (WFM) platform aimed at large, multi-site organisations that employ frontline workers. The platform brings together demand forecasting, auto-scheduling, time and attendance, core HR (onboarding, engagement, training, absence, documentation) and payroll processing in a single connected system, with the stated goal of matching staffing levels to real demand, controlling labour cost, maintaining compliance and protecting service quality across every location. Additional described capabilities include applicant tracking, learning management and real-time reporting delivered through an employee mobile app.

A central element of the product is Raffy, Sona's AI assistant, which is positioned to explain to managers what is happening, why it matters and what action to take next. Sona also markets an "agentic" layer it says offers more than 1,000 agents, including scheduling, wellbeing, compliance, HR assistant, BI analyst, capability, oversight, holiday, timecard, sales opportunity, contract mix and integrations agents, plus an "Agent Inbox" where agents propose actions for one-click approval. A "Sona Deep Research" function answers complex analytical questions, and a "Sona Forge" app builder allows customers to create custom workflows. Sources describe the underlying models as ingesting real-time operational data such as bookings, revenue, weather and historical shift data to forecast demand and model productivity.

Sona serves frontline sectors including hospitality and quick-service restaurants, hotels, social care, retail and logistics. Named customers cited in the sources include Popeyes UK, Hawksmoor, Paul Bakery, Voyage Care, Salutem Healthcare, Liaise, Loungers (300 sites) and Signature Senior Lifestyle.

Founding story

Sona was co-founded by Steffen Wulff Petersen (CEO), Ben Dixon (CTO) and Oli Johnson. The founders previously ran a frontline business with over 10,000 employees — described in one source as Catapult, a gig platform for frontline retail and hospitality workers that raised £4.3M — and encountered workforce management problems in complex enterprise operations first-hand. One source states Steffen Wulff Petersen co-founded Lazada, sold to Alibaba for $3.5B, and launched HelloFresh, which reached a €2B+ IPO, while Ben Dixon built Catapult's backend with machine learning expertise.

Business model

Sona sells an enterprise software platform to large multi-site employers, replacing multiple legacy point systems (scheduling, HR, payroll, engagement) with one integrated product. Deployments are supported by an expert-led implementation team that the company says takes customers live in weeks. The sources do not disclose pricing or contract structure.

Not disclosed in the available sources; the company positions itself as an enterprise WFM software provider selling to large frontline organisations.

Traction

Sources report customer-cited outcomes including typical labour cost reductions of 1-2% in the first month, 25%+ EBITDA improvement at enterprise scale and around 8 hours saved per manager per week on admin. Named results include Popeyes UK (4% labour cost reduction across UK locations; ~1 percentage point saving since July), Salutem Healthcare (1.5% of total payroll and $1.7M annual workforce savings), Liaise (2% revenue saved and 40 hours per week of HR admin saved) and Paul Bakery (100% app adoption, 33 locations live). Recent customer wins cited include Loungers (300 sites) and Signature Senior Lifestyle. Total funding is reported at over $100M.

Latest developments

On 1 April 2026 Sona announced a $45M Series B led by N47 with participation from existing investors Felicis, Northzone, Gradient and Italian Founders Fund, taking total funding above $100M, to be used for US expansion and platform development including the Sona Forge app builder. Richard Tallboy, previously CIO at Côte and holder of CIO/CTO roles at Pizza Express, Wagamama and The Restaurant Group, joined in a newly created Chief Information Officer Advisor role. The company also markets an agentic AI offering with over 1,000 agents.