Windmill, an AI company building what it calls the context graph for people, has raised $12 million in a seed round led by Inspired Capital, with participation from Primary Venture Partners, Founder Collective, and Oceans Ventures. The company has grown to more than 100 customers, including Kalshi, Rho, and Merge, since launching its performance reviews product in November 2025.
Windmill is built on the premise that as AI gives individuals leverage that once required entire teams, the value of each person inside an organization is increasing, not decreasing. While most companies have systems of record for nearly every asset they own, few have any structured way to understand who is performing, who is growing, who is underutilized, or who elevates the people around them. That knowledge lives in the heads of a handful of managers and is impossible to act on at scale.
The company started with performance reviews, rebuilding the process to reflect how modern companies actually work. Windmill integrates with Slack, GitHub, Google Workspace, and more than 30 other tools where work already happens, enabling reviews to be completed 90% faster with 93% employee satisfaction. But the product is a proof point for something larger: the context graph, a continuously updated and cited understanding of the workforce spanning people, evidence, expectations, and perspectives, with every insight traceable back to a specific Slack thread, pull request, or document.
The context graph is accessible through Windy, Windmill’s AI agent, the Windmill web app, and full MCP and API support, making workforce context available wherever a company needs it. The company is positioning HR as the function best equipped to lead the workforce transformation driven by AI, arguing that organizations that invest in understanding and developing their people will outperform those focused primarily on headcount reduction.
KEY QUOTES:
“There’s no question that AI tools will transform how we all work. We’re building the infrastructure to make sure that the people don’t get left behind, by giving companies tools to support their people, not replace them. At most companies, the most important context about work and people isn’t captured in one place. It’s scattered across apps, notes, conversations, and in the minds of managers. That makes important decisions about people far too dependent on memory and intuition alone. And if you want agents anywhere near those decisions, you first need a systematic way to organize the underlying context. We’re building that layer.”
Max Shaw, CEO and Co-Founder, Windmill
“I’ve had upwards of 10,000 people come through companies I’ve run. Talk to any executive and they’ll talk about how important people are. When you drill down a few levels into what they’re doing to make sure they have the right people, in the right roles, working on the right things, there’s not much depth there.”
Brian Distelburger, Co-Founder, Windmill
“Every headline right now is about AI replacing workers. We think that’s the wrong bet. The best organizations of the next decade won’t be the ones that eliminate the most headcount. They’ll be the ones that use AI to build workforces that are continuously supported and developed. Doing so requires new infrastructure, and that’s exactly what Windmill is building. Max, Brian, and Mark have the conviction and the depth to go after this problem the right way, and we’re proud to be on the journey with them.”
Alexa von Tobel, Managing Partner, Inspired Capital
