Funding will drive global expansion and product innovation to support record hiring demands
SAN FRANCISCO, CA December 6, 2021 — Sense, a market leader in AI-driven talent engagement and communication platform solutions for recruiting, today announced $50 million in Series D funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. To date, Sense has secured a total of $90 million in funding. Amid today’s hyper-competitive hiring market where blue & gray-collar workers are leaving jobs in record numbers; companies cannot accomplish their hiring goals without targeted investment in automation and AI to speed the recruiting process while infusing personalization into it. This tailwind has helped Sense gain traction across more than 600 customers.
Breakout year for Sense
This Series D funding round comes off the heels of Sense’s recent Series C announcement – highlighting the company’s momentum, increased investor interest and strong pipeline of product innovation.
“Sense’s founding mission to equip companies to engage with best-fit talent both quickly and effectively is more important than ever. Our work with hundreds of companies in the past year alone has enabled them to build great teams and compete for talent amid the pandemic,” said Anil Dharni, CEO of Sense. “Our latest funding is not only validation of the need for personalized talent engagement in today’s candidate-centric world but is also an accelerant for our platform globally as we help reshape the future of work.”
As the leader in talent engagement, Sense achieved a record year of business growth, more than doubling company revenue; doubling employee headcount; boosting enterprise deal size by 70%; and achieving a net retention rate exceeding 130%. With this new funding, Sense will continue to ramp up its go-to-market strategy and increase awareness with companies that hire at scale across rapidly growing industries including healthcare, manufacturing, logistics and retail. In addition, Sense will begin investing in international expansion especially focused in high-growth regions like Western Europe.
Munish Varma, Managing Partner, SoftBank Investment Advisers, said, “We have tracked Sense’s growth and product innovation amid one of the most transformative years in the talent landscape. Powered by AI, the Sense platform aims to help companies manage the entire talent lifecycle which is of utmost importance in today’s competitive environment.”
Sumer Juneja, Managing Partner, SoftBank Investment Advisers, added, “We believe the critical nature of the Sense platform in enabling enterprise customers to find and hire quality talent faster has been clear. As it expands both nationally and globally, we have no doubt in their ability to positively transform how companies build great teams and compete.”
Sense delivers a singular engagement platform powered by AI and machine learning that enables personalized communication across the entire talent lifecycle at scale. Through this personalized approach, Sense customers experience on average: a 263% increase in candidates screened compared to a manual approach, reduced time to fill by 30-81%, and up to 800 hours of recruiter time saved.
About Sense
Sense is the leading AI-powered talent engagement and communication platform for recruiting that enables talent acquisition teams to personalize their interactions with talent at every stage of the employment cycle. Founded in 2015 by serial entrepreneurs with deep expertise in staffing and software, Sense is an enterprise-ready solution that provides a system of engagement for TA and recruiting agencies. More than 600 customers and top staffing agencies across industries, including Kelly Services and Recruit, trust Sense. Its solutions are fully integrated with leading ATS platforms, which ensures consistency in data from one source to another. Sense ranks #1 on G2 in the Candidate Relationship Management Software category. Based in San Francisco, Sense has raised capital from Avataar Venture Partners, GV, Accel, Khosla Ventures, and Signia Ventures.