Collaboration tool governance startup Aware, incorporated as Nullable Inc., said today it has raised $60 million in a new round of funding.

Goldman Sachs Growth Equity led the Series C round, with participation from previous investors, including Spring Mountain Capital, Blue Heron Capital, Allos Ventures, Ohio Innovation Fund, JobsOhio and Rev1 Ventures.

Aware has built an artificial intelligence-powered platform that delivers governance, risk, compliance and insights for enterprises across the digital collaboration tools used by their workforce, such as Slack and Teams. The company says these capabilities are increasingly necessary in today’s world, where concepts such as remote work and hybrid work are expected to remain the norm.

Aware explains that collaboration platforms such as Slack and Teams contain mountains of human data that is unique, full of risk and also rich with insights that can potentially empower employees. Yet those platforms were never designed to handle the operational and data governance complexities of modern business.

Aware’s platform provides companies with a unified view of those tools, helping them to overcome the legal and compliance barriers to collaboration adoption. It also helps companies to address data risks and concerns over insider threats.

Moreover, the platform relies on natural language processing to generate insights around things such as employee sentiment and commonly discussed themes. Those insights can help organizations to build more empathetic and flexible, or “human-centric,” workplace models to drive productivity.

Aware co-founder and Chief Executive Jeff Schumann said the company’s platform helps to provide organizations with a better understanding of their workforce and enhance their ability to manage the risks associated with digital conversations and remote collaboration. “Aware’s continued adoption as essential tech further shows how AI solutions are key to building more transformational businesses,” he said.

The company intends to use the funds to accelerate go-to-market efforts, increase partnerships, grow its integration ecosystem and support ongoing product research and development.

Image: Aware