What if companies could hire thousands of workers without manually calling every applicant?

Hiring frontline workers at scale is less about finding one candidate and more about coordinating thousands of conversations at once. Bengaluru-based Hunar.AI has raised ₹40 crore, or about $4.2 million, in Series A funding to automate that process with conversational AI agents built specifically for high-volume workforce management.

The round was led by Blume Ventures, with participation from Hyderabad Angels Fund, Together Fund, Seedstars and AVNM Ventures. PhysicsWallah cofounders Prateek Maheshwari and Alakh Pandey, along with MediaMint cofounder Aditya Vuchi, also participated.

Hunar plans to use the capital to strengthen its AI infrastructure, develop its products andv expand its go-to-market efforts.

Founded in 2022 by Krishna Khandelwal and Shantanu Bhattacharyya, Hunar builds AI agents that can handle different stages of frontline workforce management, including hiring, onboarding, training and retention. Rather than acting as a general-purpose chatbot, the system is designed around repetitive HR workflows such as calling candidates, following up on applications, scheduling interviews and keeping workers informed through onboarding.

Language is an important part of the model. Hunar says its voice AI supports more than 20 languages, including Tamil, Telugu and Kannada, allowing companies to communicate with workers in their preferred language across multiple cities. The startup claims its agents had handled more than 1.5 crore conversations by September 2026, with volumes doubling quarter- on-quarter. Customers include Swiggy, Zepto, Croma, Bajaj Finserv, Aditya Birla Capital, Dr Lal PathLabs, 1mg and Starbucks.

The opportunity extends across quick commerce, logistics, retail, mobility and financial services — sectors where hiring demand can rise sharply during expansion or festive periods. NITI Aayog projections cited by Inc42 expect India’s gig workforce to grow from about 1 crore workers in FY25 to 2.35 crore by 2029-30.

Hunar’s bet is that the next step in recruitment software is not simply helping recruiters find candidates. It is giving AI agents responsibility for much of the coordination work that happens between an application and a worker actually joining the job.