AI-driven talent management startup ‘Sense’ has raised $16 million in a Series C funding round led by B2B and SaaS specialist venture capitalist - Avataar Ventures. Existing investors Accel & Google Ventures also participated in the funding round.

Along with raising fresh capital, the San Francisco based firm has also expanded its global footprint by doubling down on India operations. The startup has added new members to its executive leadership. Sanjay Dharmani, ex-InMobi joined Sense India as Managing Director and Nishant Rao, founder of Avataar Venture Partners also joined the board.

“I’m excited to join Sense, which in a short period has already built a reputable legacy in HR tech. Their impressive expansion revenue & low churn are clear proof points of customer love for Sense solutions. Personally, I was especially impressed by the degree of AI sophistication in-house which allows clients to customize their candidate engagement models down to a universe-of-one. We are confident, as an Indian team, that adding to such unique products will revolutionize candidate engagement in the staffing & HR industries.” said Sanjay Dharmani, Sense India Managing Director.

The startup’s founder Anil Dharni said Sense is aiming to make India their regional HQ for a broader Asia expansion.

“We see India as a highly strategic market for us. The tech talent in Indian is very robust and knowledgeable in SaaS solutions. This global expansion allows us to tap into that rich talent market to grow our product and engineering team as well as a dedicated marketing and customer success team. And eventually, it will serve as our regional HQ for broader Asia expansion which itself holds a $110 billion market potential,” said Anil Dharni, CEO and Co-founder of Sense.

“As part of our next growth phase, we are delighted to have industry veterans with deep expertise in recruiting and AI technology join our board and executive team,” Dharni added.

Founded in 2015, Sense is an enterprise-ready solution that provides a system of engagement for talent acquisition teams. The company is currently servicing more than 400 customers across the globe including Amazon and Kelly Services and this past year, Sense has doubled revenue and employee headcount.

Nishant Rao, Founding Partner, Avaatar Venture Partners, said, “Based on my extended stint running LinkedIn in the region and thereby developing a great appreciation for HR tech, I’m really excited about the immense potential Sense holds. The macro-shift to contingent labour and gig economy has already grown 10x over the past decade and yet we’ve only just begun scratching the surface. I believe our investments in new products will allow Sense to go from a robust system of engagement to a truly distinctive network/platform play for the future.”

(Edited by : pradeep suresh v)