Market Watch for Talent & HR July and June 2022

Executive Summary

Despite the economic challenges, the HR Technology market continues to attract investors, showing relevant acquisitions and fueling new funding rounds. Furthermore, companies continue to upgrade their HR technology stack, investing in automation as well as reimagining employee experience. Talent Acquisition is one of the areas that clients are investing time and resources to create a seamless and engaging experience.

The employee listening market is also expanding and being used not only in pulse surveys but using market and internal talent data to address employee experience pain points to activate actions plans. Companies continue to invest in programs for hybrid work, mental health and reskilling (capability academies) to drive growth and speed to market.

Some relevant acquisitions in the HR technology market in June and July: Degreed acquired Learn-In; ServiceNow acquired Hitch; Cornerstone acquired SumTotal and Axonify acquired Nudge. 

 In terms of funding rounds: Personio (series E; $200M), Guild (series F, $175M), Gloat (series D; $90M), 15Five (series C; $52M) and TaskHuman (series B; $20M)

In terms of partnership and new offerings: Visier launched “Workplace Dynamics” and iCIMS launched  “iCIMS Insights+ and iCIMS Insights Advisor”. See details below.

Acquisitions

• Axonify, a learning provider for front-line employees, acquired Nudge, a frontline communication and frontline solution. This acquisition will provide not only a mobile-first training approach but also a two-way communication and feedback to its clients. Axonify needs to leverage its market position and expand to workforce management to cover multiple dimensions of blue-collar workforce. See news HERE.

• Degreed, a learning experience platform, acquired a small learning startup Learn-In and bringing back David Blake as new CEO (co-founder of both companies). The acquisition of Learn-In brings a set of new learning capabilities to Degreed: the corporate capability academy concept (something like corporate universities in the early 2000’s). However, this is not about putting a couple of courses together and delivering, these academies must have business focus and can include multiple skills in a capability area i.e., innovation, speed to market. See news HERE.

• ServiceNow, a leading enterprise workflow and service management, acquired Hitch, an internal mobility and skill platform. The acquisition is allowing ServiceNow to expand to new areas in talent and HR and compete toe-to-toe with leading HR technology platforms. ServiceNow offers solutions that goes from case management, employee portal to skill and role recommendation. See news HERE.

• Cornerstone acquired SumTotal, a LMS solution, owned by Skillsoft, for approximately $200M. This acquisition incorporates additional LMS capabilities to Cornerstone’s current technology offerings. Cornerstone has acquired multiple companies in the learning space in the last years. Relevant acquisitions Clustree (talent marketplace) and EdCast (Skills and LXP). See news HERE.

Venture Capital Funding

• Personio, a HR platform for small european companies, announced its second series E funding, adding $200M to the initial funding raised in Oct 2021 making a total of $470M at a $8.5B valuation. See news HERE.
• Guild, a reskilling platform for frontline employees, raised $175M in a Series F funding. Chipotle, Lowe’s and Target are some of its corporate customers. According to the news, Guild has launched partnerships with employers including Hilton, PepsiCo, Kohl’s and Tyson Foods. See news HERE.
• Gloat, the leading talent marketplace platform, raised $90M in series D funding, bringing the organization’s total raised to $192M. The investment will be used to expand gloat’s footprint and hire new talent. See news HERE. 
• 15Five, a performance and engagement platform for mid-size organizations, raised $52M in series C funding. The investment will be used to expand its own performance. See news HERE.
• TaskHuman, a digital coaching platform, raised $20M in series B funding, to expand its coaching offering and scale its network by recruiting world class experts. See news HERE.

New Offerings & Partnerships

• Visier an HR analytics vendor launched “Workplace Dynamics” to help organizations with active and passive listening capabilities to enable workplace analytics. These new capabilities are available due to the recent acquisition of Yva. This acquisition position Visier as one of the few platforms that provides a 360-employee view (what they do, how they feel and how they work together). See news HERE.
• iCIMS, a talent acquisition platform, launched its “iCIMS Insights+ and iCIMS Insights Advisor” to provide talent, industry and real-time labor market activity via research and monthly reports. See news HERE.

Relevant Articles

• Forbes published: 
  
  • “The Metaverse: a new frontier in talent engagement”. See article HERE.
• Josh Bersin published: 
  
  • “It doesn’t look like a recession to me?.” See article HERE.
• McKinsey published: 
  
  • “Hybrid working models can leverage talent and skills across industries”. See article HERE.
• TechCrunch published: 
  
  • “What downturn? Investors remain bullish on HR tech as the great resignation slows”. See article HERE.

Art of the Possible

• “A.I. Reads Human Emotions (Without Seeing Faces)” reported by It’s Bloody Science. 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.