Novaworks Raises $8M to Replace Legacy HR Systems with Agentic AI

Silicon Valley: Novaworks has raised $8M in seed funding and launched what it calls the first agentic operating system for Total Workforce Management. The round was led by Stalwart Ventures, with strategic participation from ServiceNow Ventures and Bell Ventures.

The founding team brings direct credibility to the problem they are solving. CEO Kelley Steven-Waiss and CTO Eswar Vandanapu previously co-founded Hitch Works, an AI-powered HR platform acquired by ServiceNow in 2022.

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Steven-Waiss went on to serve as ServiceNow’s Chief Transformation Officer. Vandanapu led global engineering teams across the company’s most complex product lines. They are now backed, in part, by the company that acquired them.

The third co-founder is Melanie Lougee, joining as Chief Product Officer. She brings over 25 years in HR technology most recently as VP of Vision and Experience at Workday, and before that, leading Strategy and Future HR Products at ServiceNow.

Novaworks is built natively on the ServiceNow AI platform. It targets enterprises currently running legacy HR systems or stitched-together point solutions. The platform unifies employees, contractors, and AI agents into a single workforce management layer, embedding AI directly into core HR workflows rather than adding it on top.

The thesis behind the company is straightforward. Legacy HCM systems were built for a static workforce. The modern enterprise now manages people, contractors, and AI agents simultaneously. No major platform was built from the ground up to handle all three.

The $8M will fund product development, team expansion, and early customer growth. Novaworks is targeting enterprise organisations looking to modernise HR operations ahead of the broader shift to agentic workforce models.