Market Watch for Talent & HR Feb 2022

Executive Summary

Big news in the workforce listening and employee experience market, Perceptyx acquired Cultivate to combine employee surveys, employee crowdsourcing, and people analytics with AI-enabled behavioral nudges. Microsoft also announced that Glint is fully integrated with Microsoft’s employee experience flagship Microsoft Viva. 

In the last few years, the technology giant invested heavily in HR & Collaboration technology by acquiring LinkedIn in 2016 (which acquired Glint in 2018) and Ally.io in 2022. They also launched Microsoft Teams,  Microsoft Viva and Microsoft Mesh in 2022. The workforce listening market keeps evolving and maturing to address organizations needs to capture feedback, understand people’s emotions, relationships, ways of working and people development.

Phenom, a talent experience platform, came to the stage again with the acquisition of Tandemploy to enhance its talent marketplace capabilities. Fuel 50 launched its coaching matching services and Betterworks announced the availability of its performance certification program. Deel surprised the market by giving companies the option to fund payroll in crypto.

In terms of round of funding, HireEz (Hiretual), Talenspin, Enboarder and Peakforce raised $25M, $20M, $32M and $3M respectively.

Market Insights

Acquisitions

• Phenom, a talent experience platform, announced the acquisition of Tandemploy, a berlin-based internal mobility platform expanding its presence in the european market. 
  • This is the 4th acquisition in the last 3 years (MyAlly and Endouble acquired in 2020 and Talentcube in 2021)
  • Phenom offers a wide range of solutions in the talent acquisition, people analytics and talent marketplace market segments. Its TXM (talent experience management) platform is being used by 450 Customers in 43 different languages. See news HERE.

• Perceptyx, an employee survey and people analytics platform, announced the acquisition of Cultivate, an AI- enabled coaching platform, to position as one of the leaders in the employee listening market.
  • In 2021 Perceptyx acquired Waggl and Culture IQ  to crowdsource information from employees to provide insights and assess culture 
  • The acquisition of Cultivate is bringing another channel to listen employees and syncing employee behavioral data (sitting in collaboration platforms) and then use AI to make recommendations and/or provide insights. See news HERE.

• SmartRecruiters, an enterprise recruiting software, announced the acquisition of Attrak, a career site provider, to power candidate experience with tailor-made career sites. The amount of the investment was not disclosed. See news HERE.

• Pearson, one of the largest learning organizations, announced the acquisition of Credly, a digital credentialing platform for a price valuing it at around $200M. See news HERE.
  • According to the press release, “more than 2000 organizations use Credly and the company has issued 50 million credentials to 25 million consumers, making it the world’s largest professional credentialing marketplace”.
  • Pearson acquired Fathem in 2021 to bring market and workforce insights capabilities to its current learning offerings.
  • This acquisition is adding digital credential capabilities to learning content, skill assessment, and market insights capabilities  to serve clients’ upskilling journeys

Venture Capital Funding

• HireEZ (formerly Hiretual), a talent sourcing and engagement platform, raised $25M in series C funding. The new investment is planned to be used in product innovation, expand operations and recruit talent. See news HERE.

• Crunchr, a talent analytics platform, announced undisclosed funding round. The investment will be used in product development, international expansion and hire technical talent. See news HERE.

• Talespin, a virtual reality platform, raised $20M in series C funding to make virtual reality and augmented reality (or spatial technologies) more accessible to companies to train the workforce and create immersive learning experiences. See news HERE.

• Enboarder, an onboarding platform, raised $32M in series B funding, bringing a total investment to $50M. The company will use the new funds for internal expansion and back-end platform capabilities. See news HERE.

• Peakperformer, a digital coaching platform, raised $3M in seed funding. The new investment will be used to expand to new markets,  product, and tech development. See news HERE.

New Offerings & Partnerships

• Edcast, a learning experience platform, announced a partnership with LHH, a HR services provider, to expand its services and offer customized leadership training and development programs. 
  • Edcast is investing heavily in AI, machine learning, and integration capabilities to create customized learning journeys and recommend to employees learning content based on gaps and career aspirations.
  • In 2020 Edcast launched Skill Studio, an out-of-the box skill architecture to build and integrate skills in a single system of record allowing companies centralized skills databases coming from different sources. See news HERE

• Microsoft, recently announced that Glint, an employee engagement platform acquired by LinkedIn in 2018, is fully integrated into Microsoft Viva to bring employee experience and employee listening together.
  • This is a strategic move for Microsoft since the employee listening market is growing exponentially and HR tech vendors are reacting to client demands (this week Perceptyx acquired Cultivate bringing together employee surveys, analytics with AI-enabled coaching and behavioral nudges). See news HERE.

• Betterworks, a performance management platform, announced the launch of its performance enablement coach (PEC) certification program. According to the press release, this is a program designed for people managers and HR professionals with tools and resources they need to learn the fundamentals of performance management and enablement. See news HERE.

• Fuel 50, a talent marketplace platform, launched an internal coaching matching service to match employees with internal coaches based on skills and experiences they want to develop overtime. Fuel50’s relevant clients are Citi, Celgene, Ebay, and Indeed. See news HERE.

• Deel, a payroll and compliance platform, announced that companies can use crypto to pay remote employees. To Deel, the move is the next step in mainstream adoption of crypto. See news HERE.

Relevant Articles

• Harvard Business Review published: 
  • “Robots need us more than we need them”. See article HERE.
  • “Skills-Based hiring is on the rise”. See article HERE.
• Josh Bersin published: 
  • “Building a company skills strategy”. See article HERE.
• Crunchbase published: 
  • “‘Great resignation’ drives billions in VC dollars to upskilling startups”. See article HERE.
• Forbes published: 
  • “The five biggest education and training technology trends in 2022”. See article HERE.

Art of the Possible

• “You could soon fly to work in a $92,000 flying car”; reported by Techinsider. See video HERE.

More to come! Stay tuned.

Note: All views expressed in this article do not represent the opinions of any entity whatsoever with which I have been, am now, or will be affiliated. My opinions are my own.