Bites raises USD $40 million to train deskless workers

Bites has raised USD $40 million in a Series A round led by PeakSpan Capital, bringing its total funding to USD $55 million.

Vertex Ventures, Horizon Capital, Rittenhouse Ventures and Lyra Ventures also joined the round. PeakSpan's Phil Dur and Charlie Reinkemeyer will join the board.

The funding will support US expansion and further development of Bites' training platform for deskless workers. The platform delivers short video lessons through channels such as WhatsApp, SMS, Microsoft Teams and Slack, rather than through dedicated apps or learning management system logins.

Customers include Unilever, Coca-Cola, Shake Shack, Wynn Resorts, The Venetian and Compass Group. According to Bites, customers typically achieve more than 90% engagement within three weeks, and the company reported 161% net revenue retention.

Frontline focus

Bites targets companies with large numbers of employees who do not work at desks or regularly use computers. It cites an estimated 2.8 billion deskless workers globally, about 80% of the workforce, as a segment traditional corporate training systems often fail to reach.

The platform sends lessons of up to 90 seconds that combine short video, questions, summaries and discussion prompts. It also includes tools to generate training videos from documents such as standard operating procedures and supports more than 150 languages.

Bites is pitching the product not only to learning and development teams but also to sales, commercial and operations leaders. That reflects a broader push to link staff training more directly to operational metrics such as sales, service standards and compliance with procedures.

Another part of the business focuses on linking training with data from point-of-sale, customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning and human capital management systems. Some of these integrations are already active, and the new funding will support further work to identify performance gaps, create training and measure business outcomes.

"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. We built Bites to put that support in every frontline employee's hands," said Eran Heftetz, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Bites.

"With PeakSpan's partnership, we'll be able to help businesses spot where teams need support, act on it immediately, and see whether it makes a difference. That means turning business data into actionable, personalized training and enablement leading to better performance on the frontline."

Investor view

PeakSpan said its investment thesis centres on software built specifically for deskless staff, rather than tools adapted from office-based work. It also pointed to demand from budget holders outside traditional corporate learning functions.

"Frontline employees make up approximately 80% of the global workforce, yet companies have historically had to stitch together tools designed for office workers because few solutions have been built with deskless workers specifically in mind. PeakSpan's thesis rests on Bites being purpose-built for this segment of the workforce, around how they actually work, to help them perform at their best. That thesis was validated throughout our diligence, as the customers we spoke with consistently described how closely the platform fits their workforce's needs and how that fit translates into meaningful productivity gains. Because Bites reaches deskless employees through the channels they already use, and because of the impact it is delivering for customers, it is being adopted quickly by commercial, operations and L&D leaders who own frontline results and control budgets that extend well beyond traditional corporate learning. Looking ahead, Bites is building a data foundation that connects training to business outcomes, so it can deliver the right enablement at the right moment to drive better results. We are excited about where Bites is today and where it is headed, and we are privileged to partner with the team," said Phil Dur, Co-founder and Managing Partner of PeakSpan Capital.

Existing backers also used the round to underline support for the company's expansion. The fundraising comes as Bites builds out its commercial organisation in New York and targets growth in banking, insurance and extended workforce services, alongside hospitality, quick-service restaurants, retail, consumer goods and manufacturing.

"Few companies get customers to come back and ask for more. Bites does. As Bites' first lead investor, we've believed in the team's vision from the beginning, and we're excited to support this next chapter as the company expands in the U.S.," said Aviad Ariel, General Partner at Vertex Ventures.

"The best founders know how to master uncertainty and turn it into opportunity, and the Bites team has demonstrated that ability time and again. What excites me about Bites is how it brings AI into everyday frontline work: on the shop floor, in a restaurant, and at the front desk. I believe that's where technology can make a real difference, and I'm proud to have been in their corner from the beginning," said Yaniv Jacobi, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Horizon Capital.

Heffetz said the next stage of the platform will focus on showing whether training changes business performance. "Every company already knows training matters. What they've never had is proof, or speed," he said. "We have shown that frontline employees complete training built for how they work. Bites' next generation is about what happens next: finding the gap, closing it automatically and showing the business what it was worth. That's when L&D stops being a cost center and becomes a lever for performance."