Lumenai wins pre-seed funding to track workplace behaviour

Lumenai has secured pre-seed funding from Corpora.ai. The Oxford-incubated startup is developing tools to measure workplace behaviour and judgment in a form AI systems can use.

The investment will help Lumenai expand a model that turns traits such as decision-making, adaptability, collaboration and leadership into structured data. As part of the deal, Corpora.ai will also provide access to its research platform and wider knowledge ecosystem.

The funding reflects growing employer interest in how artificial intelligence interacts with workers as automation takes on more technical tasks. While companies have long tracked qualifications, technical skills and performance metrics, softer attributes have often sat outside formal systems because they are harder to define and compare.

Lumenai argues that gap is becoming more significant as AI tools move closer to day-to-day management and support roles. Its approach centres on what it calls Human Capability Indexing, a methodology developed by Founder and Chief Executive Officer Antonia Manoochehri.

The company describes its product as an academic measurement application that captures attitudes, preferences, behaviours and values, then converts them into structured capability data. Those measures can then be benchmarked across different workplace settings.

Assessment focus

Manoochehri has built her career in assessment and standards frameworks, and Lumenai says its methods draw on more than 30 years of academic and assessment expertise. That work sits within Lumenai LABS, the company's research arm, where methodologies are peer-reviewed and published before commercial use.

The startup emerged from the Oxford University Innovation Startup Incubator and positions itself at the intersection of behavioural science, assessment and workplace technology. Its tools are designed to give employers a more consistent way to understand how people operate under pressure, make decisions and work with others.

According to Lumenai, its assessments can capture more than 50 objective data points. The aim is to give organisations data that can be tracked over time, rather than relying on subjective judgments in hiring, performance reviews or leadership development.

"Traditional assessment is linear, focused on hard skills, CVs and qualifications, which leaves little room for the many ways people create value through their judgment, their decisions and how they respond under pressure. Turning those capabilities into structured data has never mattered more: as AI agents increasingly work alongside and even manage employees, organisations have to understand people in a way that AI can read. This investment lets us bring that capability to many more organisations, far faster," said Manoochehri.

The deal also gives Lumenai access to Corpora.ai's research capabilities. Both companies said the link is intended to help users move from identifying a development need to deciding how to respond.

Strategic link

Corpora.ai develops research and knowledge tools for startups and corporate research and development teams. It says it has built a large graph database of real-time global content, which it uses to support idea validation, product development and funding decisions.

For Lumenai, the relationship offers more than capital. Access to that ecosystem is expected to connect the company's behavioural data with a broader pool of verified information, giving employers another layer of context when assessing workforce development.

"Corpora.ai's vast AI knowledge base will significantly enhance our ability to help employees and employers accelerate their shared success, especially as more and more organisations prepare for large-scale AI adoption," said Manoochehri.

The investment comes as businesses face growing pressure to define the role of human labour in workplaces shaped by machine learning tools and AI agents. Much of the current debate has focused on which tasks can be automated, but a parallel question is how organisations identify the human qualities that remain essential when machines handle a larger share of routine work.

That issue has commercial as well as operational implications. Employers are under pressure to train staff for changing roles, make better hiring decisions and manage teams in hybrid environments where digital tools increasingly influence workflow, communication and oversight.

Mel Morris CBE, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Corpora.ai, linked the investment to that shift in workplace priorities.

"We are delighted to invest in Lumenai. As AI becomes part of everyday working life, people need trusted, evidence-based guidance to develop new skills and navigate increasingly complex hybrid environments. Lumenai provides a unique understanding of human capability, grounded in Antonia's decades of assessment science and the strength of the team she has built. By backing them and connecting their behavioural intelligence to our AI knowledge ecosystem, we are proud to support Antonia and her team on the next stage of their journey," said Morris.