About Cinder
We have a grudge
We have a grudge
against busywork.
against busywork.
Cinder exists because the most important work in a company keeps getting buried under the least important work. We are building the quiet engine that clears the way.
Cinder exists because the most important work in a company keeps getting buried under the least important work. We are building the quiet engine that clears the way.
Founded 2023
San Francisco · Remote
84 people
FIELD NOTES
NO. 001
“We measured the work between the work. It turned out to be most of it.”
The Cinder field study, 2024
2501
250+1+
teams running Cinder
2501
teams running Cinder
1.2M+0M+
workflows executed monthly
181
countries with active teams
2,400+1,000+
2,100+1,000+
people across 12 time zones
01 / Why we exist
The work between the work.
Modern work is mostly glue work.
Modern work is mostly glue work.
01 / Why we exist
The work between the work.
Modern work is mostly glue work.
We started Cinder after watching brilliant operations teams spend their days copying data between tools, chasing approvals, and re-typing the same information into the same forms. The work was real. It just wasn’t the work they were hired for.
We started Cinder after watching brilliant operations teams spend their days copying data between tools, chasing approvals, and re-typing the same information into the same forms. The work was real. It just wasn’t the work they were hired for.
So we built a system that learns the shape of a process once, then runs it quietly in the background — with the judgment, context, and audit trail a real business requires. Not a chatbot. Not another dashboard. A colleague that never forgets the steps.
So we built a system that learns the shape of a process once, then runs it quietly in the background — with the judgment, context, and audit trail a real business requires. Not a chatbot. Not another dashboard. A colleague that never forgets the steps.
Nadia Voss
Co-founder & CEO
We started Cinder after watching brilliant operations teams spend their days copying data between tools, chasing approvals, and re-typing the same information into the same forms. The work was real. It just wasn’t the work they were hired for.
So we built a system that learns the shape of a process once, then runs it quietly in the background — with the judgment, context, and audit trail a real business requires. Not a chatbot. Not another dashboard. A colleague that never forgets the steps.
Nadia Voss
Co-founder & CEO
02 / What we believe
Four ideas we keep coming back to.
01
Craft over speed
Craft over speed
We would rather ship one workflow that feels inevitable than ten that feel automated.
02
Default to candor
Default to candor
Clear pricing, honest limits, and a straight answer when something breaks. No theatre.
03
Momentum is a feature
Momentum is a feature
A tool that saves an hour a week is only useful if someone can set it up in five minutes.
04
Trust is the product
Trust is the product
Every run is legible. Every action is reversible. Every customer keeps the keys.
01
Craft over speed
We would rather ship one workflow that feels inevitable than ten that feel automated.
02
Default to candor
Clear pricing, honest limits, and a straight answer when something breaks. No theatre.
03
Momentum is a feature
A tool that saves an hour a week is only useful if someone can set it up in five minutes.
04
Trust is the product
Every run is legible. Every action is reversible. Every customer keeps the keys.
03 / The story
A short history
of a long grudge.
A short history
of a long grudge.
Four years, one obsession: the work that falls between your tools.
2023
Chapter 01 / 04
Chapter 01 · 2023
Two people, one spreadsheet
Nadia and Elias start mapping every manual handoff inside a 40-person ops team. The spreadsheet becomes the first Cinder graph.
40-person ops team
Chapter 02 · 2024
The first quiet run
Cinder moves from prototype to a private beta with twelve companies. The first invoice is processed end-to-end without a human touching it.
12 beta companies
Chapter 03 · 2025
12,000 teams
The product opens to everyone. Human-in-the-loop approvals and the audit trail ship — the two features customers asked for most.
Opens to everyone
Chapter 04 · 2026
The engine gets quiet
Cinder crosses 1.4M monthly runs. The roadmap turns to depth: better judgment, fewer escalations, more work returned.
1.4M monthly runs
Chapter 01 · 2023
Two people, one spreadsheet
Nadia and Elias start mapping every manual handoff inside a 40-person ops team. The spreadsheet becomes the first Cinder graph.
40-person ops team
Chapter 02 · 2024
The first quiet run
Cinder moves from prototype to a private beta with twelve companies. The first invoice is processed end-to-end without a human touching it.
12 beta companies
Chapter 03 · 2025
12,000 teams
The product opens to everyone. Human-in-the-loop approvals and the audit trail ship — the two features customers asked for most.
Opens to everyone
Chapter 04 · 2026
The engine gets quiet
Cinder crosses 1.4M monthly runs. The roadmap turns to depth: better judgment, fewer escalations, more work returned.
1.4M monthly runs
04 / The people
Small team. Unreasonable standards.
We are designers, operators, and engineers who have lived the problem we are solving. Distributed by default, together on purpose.
NV
Nadia Voss
Co-founder & CEO
Berlin
Spent a decade untangling finance ops before sketching Cinder on a spreadsheet.
EK
Elias Kade
Co-founder & CTO
San Francisco
Builds the engine. Treats every manual handoff as a bug waiting to be fixed.
MA
Mira Anand
Head of Design
Lisbon
Makes complicated workflows feel calm, quiet and entirely obvious.
JT
Jonas Thiel
Head of Operations
New York
Keeps the company running smoothly and the rest of us honest about deadlines.
RS
Rhea Santos
Staff Engineer
Manila
Owns the approval flow and the audit trail, the two features customers asked for most.
DO
David Okafor
Head of Customer
London
Talks to customers every day and turns what he hears into the roadmap.
NV
Nadia Voss
Co-founder & CEO
Berlin
Spent a decade untangling finance ops before sketching Cinder on a spreadsheet.
EK
Elias Kade
Co-founder & CTO
San Francisco
Builds the engine. Treats every manual handoff as a bug waiting to be fixed.
MA
Mira Anand
Head of Design
Lisbon
Makes complicated workflows feel calm, quiet and entirely obvious.
JT
Jonas Thiel
Head of Operations
New York
Keeps the company running smoothly and the rest of us honest about deadlines.
RS
Rhea Santos
Staff Engineer
Manila
Owns the approval flow and the audit trail, the two features customers asked for most.
DO
David Okafor
Head of Customer
London
Talks to customers every day and turns what he hears into the roadmap.
NV
Nadia Voss
Co-founder & CEO
Berlin
Spent a decade untangling finance ops before sketching Cinder on a spreadsheet.
EK
Elias Kade
Co-founder & CTO
San Francisco
Builds the engine. Treats every manual handoff as a bug waiting to be fixed.
MA
Mira Anand
Head of Design
Lisbon
Makes complicated workflows feel calm, quiet and entirely obvious.
JT
Jonas Thiel
Head of Operations
New York
Keeps the company running smoothly and the rest of us honest about deadlines.
RS
Rhea Santos
Staff Engineer
Manila
Owns the approval flow and the audit trail, the two features customers asked for most.
DO
David Okafor
Head of Customer
London
Talks to customers every day and turns what he hears into the roadmap.
05 / Careers
Come build the quiet engine.
We hire slowly, pay well, and protect deep work. If the problem resonates, we would like to meet you.
See open roles
The work doesn’t stop. Neither does Cinder.
Burn the busywork.
Start in minutes. Keep the work that matters.
Cinder
AI workflow automation for teams that would rather do the work that matters.
All systems operational
Cinder
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