Omnipresent aims to help enterprises hire and manage a global workforce

The world is a large village, and no one attempts to understand this more holistically than Omnipresent, a 2-year-old startup that provides a human resource/onboarding SaaS service designed to help companies hire remote-working local teams worldwide. One never knows exactly where in the world the best talent lies waiting and enterprises can always use help in making those key identifications.

This is what Omnipresent does – help make the right connections, and investors know the value this brings. The remote global employment software maker today announced that it has raised $120 million in its Series B funding round, which includes a pre-Series B round in the second half of 2021.

Omnipresent, founded in 2019 and registered in London, handles just about everything needed for a company’s human resource team: local employment compliance, payroll, human resource support, and benefits for international teams, enabling clients to productively hire and manage full-time personnel internationally. 

Omnipresent is a relatively new entrant in the SaaS-based onboarding market, competing with the more established Workday Peakon Employee Voice, SAP, WalkMe and Pendo. According to AppsRunTheWorld, the market is splintered, so there is opportunity for innovation. ARTW reports that the onboarding applications market size is expected to reach $1.35 billion by 2025, compared with $1.2 billion in 2020 at a compound annual growth rate of 2.5%.

How Omnipresent works

Omnipresent’s approach is to act as the legal employer on behalf of its clients in every country, Guenther Eisinger, co-founder and co-CEO, told VentureBeat. The company’s intuitive, tech-enabled platform allows HR staff to onboard new hires compliantly worldwide, providing them with local contracts, tax contributions, and competitive benefits, such as health insurance, pensions, and paid leave, he said.

At a time when companies need to secure the best talent, they’re looking to benefit from the quality and diversity of a global workforce, Eisinger said. “But there are challenges to operating globally, from dealing with local labor laws to payroll taxes and employee benefits. Omnipresent helps solve these complexities and acts as a partner to help companies go global-first. We are here to provide the expertise, support, and guidance they need to be able to hire international talent located anywhere in the world,” Eisinger said.

Even though there are more than 2,000 languages spoken in the world, at this time Omnipresent handles all its HR processes in English, because “it is still the language of global business,” Eisinger said. “But we expect to expand to several other mainstream languages in the future.”

The company currently offers its service in 160 countries, “so we need to understand the jurisdictions of those countries, and to understand benefits, which are all very different,” Eisinger said. “For instance, we understand currencies, cultural norms, payroll, all of this. We are able to create an employment onboarding experience without the applicant ever speaking to a human – most of the time. That won’t be possible all the time, but this is our intention.” 

Entering salary information in the app will automatically calculate the contributions and self-contribution of taxes or automatically generate the contracts, Eisinger said, and signatures are completed fully online. Identity and background checks are all made online, he said.

“This is a journey,” Eisinger said. “We have been able to automate certain steps. But this will obviously take some time (to perfect as much as possible), and that’s one of the reasons why we have raised another solid investment round. Technology is one of the areas where we will heavily invest.”

‘Tectonic shift’ in the way companies hire

The world is seeing a tectonic shift in the way businesses work and hire – from local-first to global- and remote-first, said Matthew Wilson, co-founder and co-CEO with Eisinger. 

“Omnipresent is catalyzing and accelerating this change,” Wilson said. “Every day, we see companies gaining from a global pool of the best talent, and employees benefiting from new access to career opportunities worldwide — regardless of where they live.”

Omnipresent sets itself apart with its expert understanding of local differences in a globalized world, said Ola Nordbye, investment director at Kinnevik, which led the funding round. 

The future of global remote work

Proceeds from the current investment will be used to help build out Omnipresent’s new products and services, customer growth, and geographic expansion. The company will also add several hundred new members to its diverse, distributed team, who work remotely from around the world, Eisinger said.

This investment round was led by Kinnevik, a leading European growth investor, and Tencent, a global leading technology company. Uncorrelated Ventures, a San Francisco-based investor, also participated, rounding out an investor list from Asia, Europe and America.

“Employers are no longer relying on their local area for the talent they need to grow their businesses,” Eisinger said.