A Philly standout added another company to its portfolio of acquisitions.
HR tech company Phenom acquired its seventh company, and Technical.ly spoke with CEO Mahe Bayireddi to find out more about how the company decides when it’s time to buy.
Plus, the City of Philadelphia announced a new volunteer program to support digital skills resources across Philadelphia.
Keep reading for all the details and more power moves.
Phenom continues buying up the competition with Included AI acquisition
Phenom acquired Included, a Seattle-based AI people analytics platform, earlier this month. The company declined to share the value of the deal.
People analytics refers to data tied to talent acquisition, onboarding and other HR operations. Included’s platform puts all that information in one place, instead of across several dashboards.
“Included AI brings this in an agentic format of people analytics, where they can take action on every problem they have within the workforce insights,” Mahe Bayireddi, CEO and cofounder of Phenom, told Technical.ly.
Agentic AI is trending right now, and it refers to AI systems that can make their own decisions and complete tasks based on past experience. Included’s platform uses agentic AI to help companies analyze workforce data, figure out what issues exist and make suggestions for how to fix them.
Phenom weighs three main criteria when considering an acquisition: the strength of a company’s underlying infrastructure, whether it adds vertical depth in a specific industry and whether it improves operational efficiency, Bayireddi said.
“When we were buying Included, what we really thought about is … what they built underneath.”
Mahe Bayireddi, CEO and cofounder of Phenom
One of the reasons Phenom was interested in Included was because of its proprietary algorithms. It also uses a canonical model, or a data framework that communicates between different formats, Bayireddi said. Combined with the use of agentic AI, that approach fits well with Phenom’s existing infrastructure and helped the company speed up work with clients.
“When we were buying Included, what we really thought about is … what they built underneath to understand how to build analytics at an organizational level,” Bayireddi said. “Using agents, and by using natural language [processing], is what they created. And we thought that’s a perfect fit for our infrastructure.”
This is the third company acquired by Phenom in the last year and a half. The company bought its sixth company, talent platform EDGE, last February and acquired employee data platform Tydy in summer 2024.
Phenom bought employee experience platform Tandemploy in 2022. Over six months in 2020 and 2021, the company purchased AI scheduling platform My Ally, recruitment tool Endouble and video tech company Talentcube.
In 2021, Phenom raised a $100 million Series D fundraising round at a $1.4 billion valuation, Forbes reported at the time.
Volunteer to teach digital literacy through new OIT program
Philadelphia’s Office of Innovation and Technology (OIT) launched a new volunteer program this month to help residents learn digital skills.
The Power Up Tech Corps is looking for volunteers to go to rec centers, libraries and other community spaces to work alongside digital navigators, or professionals dedicated to helping residents access technology and find digital resources. Participants may also be asked to monitor computer labs or teach digital skills classes.
“This program reinforces OIT’s commitment to advancing digital equity in our city,” Melissa Scott, chief information officer in OIT, said. “These amazing volunteers will help OIT continue to deliver vital digital skills training to residents most in need — ensuring that no one is left behind in this more digitally connected world.”
The program will have both a youth cohort for ages 14 to 17 and an adult cohort. It aims to train and place about 30 volunteers this year. Applications are currently open.
More power moves:
- Malvern-based digital marketing firm 2X acquired New York-based The Kiln, which specializes in the research and data platform Clay. The deal expands 2X’s offerings from just marketing to other go-to-market services like sales.
- Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania appointed Laura Plunkett, John Swartley, Mitch Vidovitch and Patrick Ward to its board of directors.
- Zeb, a digital transformation consulting company, appointed Dave Broering as its next chief revenue officer.
- Global financial services company SEI announced Jeff Benfield would be its next chief product officer. Paul Lehman also joined the company as head of bank asset management distribution in SEI’s asset management business.
- The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia selected four appointees for its board of directors. Peter Ruggiero and Michael DiPiano will be on the board, while William Lo was named chair and Kisha Hortman Hawthorne deputy chair.
- STEM Up Network, an org focused on expanding access to resources for professional women in STEM, is partnering with the Pennsylvania Academy of Science on programming and networking opportunities.
- Molecular biologist Jianliang Xu will join the Wistar Institute’s HIV Cure and Viral Diseases Center.
- Amit Jain, founder of SAT prep platform MentoMind, launched Think10x.ai, an educational resources tool. Both products are under his company Innotrail.
