Bites raises $40 million Series A to bring AI training to frontline workers
The platform turns company procedures into short, branded videos delivered through WhatsApp, Teams and other familiar channels. The company plans to expand in the U.S. and develop technology linking training to business outcomes.
Bites, an AI platform that creates personalized training for employees who do not work at desks, has raised $40 million in a Series A funding round, bringing its total funding to $55 million. The round was led by PeakSpan Capital, with participation from existing investors Vertex Ventures, Horizon Capital, Rittenhouse Ventures, Lyra Ventures and others. PeakSpan’s Phil Dur and Charlie Reinkemeyer will join the company’s board.
The company plans to use the funding to accelerate its expansion in the United States, develop its AI platform and grow its sales and customer success teams. It also plans to build partner and reseller channels and expand into banking, insurance and businesses that rely on external workers, while continuing to serve customers in hospitality, retail, consumer goods and manufacturing.
Founded in 2020 by CEO Eran Heffetz, COO Tal Nagler Almog and CIO Hagai Horovitz, Bites focuses on a segment of the workforce that traditional corporate training systems often struggle to reach. Its platform creates short, personalized training materials for frontline employees and aims to connect what workers learn with measurable changes in business performance.
The company employs 30 people across its development center in Tel Aviv and its headquarters in New York. Its customers include Unilever, Coca-Cola, Shake Shack, Wynn Resorts, The Venetian and Compass Group, as well as Israeli companies in hospitality and retail.
Heffetz’s route into technology began with a problem he encountered while managing restaurants and bars in Tel Aviv. He repeatedly had to retrain staff as employees left and new workers joined, and came to believe that conventional training methods were poorly suited to the realities of frontline work.
“Running restaurants taught me that business performance comes down to what people do on the floor, every day, and whether they have the knowledge and support to do it well,” Heffetz said. “We built Bites to put that support in every frontline employee’s hands.”
Heffetz previously co-founded and managed several Tel Aviv venues, including Vicky Cristina, Little Italy in Sarona and Bread Story on Dizengoff Street. After leaving the Air Force, he established a number of bars and restaurants before co-founding Anshei HaIr, a real estate company in which he is no longer active.
Nagler Almog previously managed the psychometric exam department at Kidum, where she met Horovitz, who holds a degree in electrical and computer engineering. The three founders combined their experience in training and business operations to develop learning materials and tools for classroom and independent study before building Bites.
Heffetz said the company initially faced a slow adoption process, although sales continued, primarily in the United States. He described the past year as a turning point, as the product evolved to serve large enterprises across different levels of their organizations.
“AI has served as a significant catalyst,” he told Calcalist. “From the outset, we understood that to create effective content for employees, content that actually drives action, the process must be data-driven and supported by automated tools.”
Bites is built around a problem facing large employers: many of the people who interact directly with customers do not spend their working day at a computer. The company cites an estimate that approximately 80% of the global workforce, or about 2.8 billion people, do not work at a desk.
For these employees, training that requires logging into a learning management system can be difficult to access amid the demands of a shift. Yet their actions can determine whether a promotion succeeds, a new product is presented correctly or a new operating procedure is followed.
Bites uses its AI Studio to turn documents, standard operating procedures and other source materials into branded training videos within minutes. The content can be tailored to a company’s locations, uniforms and products, and delivered through channels employees already use, including WhatsApp, SMS, Microsoft Teams and Slack, or through a simple link.
Each lesson, known as a “Bite,” lasts up to 90 seconds and combines a short video with a question, a summary and a discussion. The platform supports more than 150 languages, allowing employees to switch languages with a single tap. The company says employees do not need to install a separate app or create login credentials.
The platform also includes an “Ask-AI” feature that answers employees’ questions in natural language using approved company content. The aim is to give workers access to role-specific information when they need it, rather than relying solely on formal training sessions.
Bites says its customers typically achieve engagement rates above 90% within three weeks. The company also reports net revenue retention of 161%, a measure indicating that revenue from existing customers has grown over time, including the effects of expansion and customer churn.
“Every company already knows training matters. What they’ve never had is proof, or speed,” Heffetz said. “Bites’ next generation is about what happens next: finding the gap, closing it automatically and showing the business what it was worth.”
