Labrys raises $20m to power secure workforce management platform for international humanitarian and security teams
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Labrys — the company building the trust infrastructure for managing globally distributed teams — is announcing it has raised $20 million led by Plural. AlbionVC and Superangel also participated, alongside previous investors Project A, MDOne, Expeditions Fund and Marque Ventures. The funding, which brings the total raised to $25.5 million, will be used to scale Labrys’ engineering and operations teams, add advanced AI-driven capabilities and new deployment models to address the urgent need for trustworthy operational tools as global crises escalate.
Elite team tackling frontline challenges
Humanitarian organisations, defence forces, crisis response teams and logistics providers are operating in some of the most volatile places on Earth. Yet many are flying blind when it comes to managing people on the ground, relying on insecure and unreliable emails, spreadsheets and messaging apps to coordinate and remunerate workforces. This dangerous status quo can have catastrophic failures, from millions in aid going missing to 60,000-strong security forces being directed over WhatsApp and more.
Labrys was founded to fix this. Having spent a combined 20+ years on the frontline, Royal Marine veteran August Lersten (CEO) and former Army Officer Luke Wattam (COO) have built the world’s first military-grade, end-to-end command and control platform, capable of verifying and coordinating teams across the world’s most complex environments.
Called Axiom, this platform – the first in a suite of products being developed by Labrys – combines HR and task-management tools, with encrypted communications and global payment tools. It uses biometric identity checks to verify that people are who they say they are, with geo-tagged tasks and built-in audits to track missions, tasks and teams.
Its unique, integrated and compliant stablecoin disbursement allows payments to be made in the rapidly expanding cryptocurrency anywhere in the world, which is critical when working with people in regions with little to no banking infrastructure. This is all while being fully auditable and programmable, removing middlemen, lag and compliance risks without sacrificing control.
By running secure, compliant and verifiable operations from an all-in-one platform, Axiom is already saving teams up to $3 million in costs while unlocking new revenue opportunities and maximising compliance. This is a critical advantage, as geopolitical tensions rise and funding cuts are now the most severe challenge to international humanitarian work for 80 years, meaning secure, efficient and trackable resources like Labrys’ Axiom are needed more than ever.
Securing mission success and enabling growth
Since raising its seed round in 2023, Labrys has secured seven-figure annual revenues, including contracts with government clients and customers across logistics and humanitarian disaster response, including in Ukraine. This is set to grow following the new funding, with the team enhancing its identity infrastructure, multi-party access controls and audit tooling. Labrys also plans to double down on its stablecoin integrations to enable customers to access reliable, programmable payments in fragile, disconnected or sanctioned environments where traditional financial rails fall short.
August Lersten, co-founder and CEO of Labrys, said: “Being unable to verify if a person can be trusted, if a task has been completed or work out how to pay them has been preventing successful humanitarian, aid and military missions for too long. Yet solving the issues has historically been considered too complex and too difficult, leaving organisations stuck using disparate and insecure platforms. We created Labrys to solve these tough workforce and team coordination problems in logistics, risk and humanitarian crisis response and we’ve built a talented team to tackle the hardest technical problems in this space. We’re delighted to be backed by investors who understand this mission and want to build the future of trusted infrastructure right alongside us.”
Sten Tamkivi, Partner at Plural, said: “A lot of defense and resilience innovation focuses on hardware assets. Yet, there’s been a gap around secure, reliable system for human coordination when it matters most – until now. August and Luke’s experience on the literal front lines means they know exactly the challenges experienced on the ground and are building Labrys to solve these challenges once and for all. This is exactly the kind of mission we want to support at Plural and I look forward to working with them to grow Labrys.”
Cat McDonald, Partner AlbionVC said: “At AlbionVC, we know what it takes to scale secure, regulated, mission-critical infrastructure – whether in healthcare, financial markets, digital assets, or compliance-first payments. Labrys brings this DNA to frontline coordination, combining advanced identity, real-time tasking and stablecoin payments into a platform that simply can’t fail. With Gus and Luke’s deep field experience and outstanding early traction, Labrys is on track to become the mission-critical OS for global defence and humanitarian efforts. We’re thrilled to be part of the journey alongside such a superb team and group of investors“
More in The Times.
