Danish startup Zoios gets $1M seed investment to solve leadership crisis 

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Zoios raises a $1 million seed round from People’s Ventures, Y Combinator, and a syndicate of prominent Danish angel investors to turn poor managers into great leaders.

The Danish startup Zoios provides an AI-powered platform that tracks employee well-being and performance and delivers recommendations for leadership teams and HR professionals. So far, they’ve established themselves in the Scandinavian market, working with big organizations such as Telenor, Red Cross, and Maersk and scaleups like Veo and Donkey Republic. With the new investment and 231 % last year, the young company can become profitable within a year.

Recent Gallup research shows that only 18 % of those in management positions demonstrate a high talent for managing others, while just about 20 % show basic talent. Zoios is on a mission to improve these numbers.

Poor leadership is becoming more costly with an increasingly intense fight for talent where the negotiation power has shifted from employer to employee. Meanwhile, declining well-being in the workplace and increasing stress levels is no longer acceptable. It’s no wonder that talented leaders contribute 48% higher profits.

Companies spend more on leadership development programs than all of the HR tech combined. That’s remarkable. The same leadership problems have existed for centuries, indicating that the current solution doesn’t solve them.

We don’t need more theory, we need actual insight, time and tools that support the leader daily. Our solution has proven to improve employee well-being by 19% and decrease stress in organizations by 18% in just six months.

Zoios CEO, Christian Højbo Møller says.

Danish startup Zoios co-founders
Danish startup Zoios co-founders

Zoios is especially suited for knowledge workers. The platform tracks the 8 drivers behind a happy and productive work life such as the feeling of support from managers, social well-being and personal development. Based on the anonymized input from the employees, Zoios AI-powered platform then provides leaders, HR professionals, and People & Culture teams with data and tailored advice on where to adjust.

We see a huge potential for Zoios as a platform to make leadership more data-driven and copilot the managers as they lead their team. Good managers and leaders are likely the one thing every executive knows to be a “power lever” to successful teams and departments.

Their already being on the brink of being a profitable business while growing triple digits every year just makes the case even stronger.

says Christian Tost, General Partner in People Ventures.

Copenhagen-based Zoios was founded in 2021 by Christian Højbo Møller and Mikkel Agesen. Just three months after its inception, it became the ninth-ever Danish company to receive an investment from the prestigious Y-Combinator. In total, Zoios raised several million dollars from People Ventures, Y-Combinator, and angel investors like Christian Lohmann, Stefan Rosenlund, and Martin Ackermann.