Stoke nabs $15.5M to boost its AI-driven freelance management system

Stoke is announcing it has raised $15.5 million in a series A round of funding. The company, which offers a freelance management system (FMS) to help enterprises manage independent contractors, freelancers, consultants, agencies, and gig workers, will use the funds to build out engineering, product marketing, and sales, Stoke cofounder and CEO Shahar Erez told VentureBeat. In terms of the product itself, he says the company wants to expand its partner ecosystem for marketplaces with sources for talent, including improving the experience for sourcing and adding a greater variety of sourcing capabilities. The company will also work toward launching global compliance for classification, rounding out compliance offerings for the U.S. and some European countries that Erez said are now "pretty solidified." In March, Stoke launched its Worker Classification Engine, an AI-powered system that analyzes companies' relationships with contractors and freelancers and alerts them to potentially costly compliance risks.