HR tech company Phenom makes its first acquisition: AI-driven scheduling platform My Ally

Ambler-based HR tech company Phenom (née Phenom People) announced Wednesday that it had acquired AI-driven HR tech company My Ally, maker of an intelligent, omni-channel interview scheduling experience.

The acquisition comes about eight months after Phenom raised a $30 million Series C with plans of expanding its technology, the Phenom Talent Experience Management Platform, which takes into account four stakeholders — candidate, recruiter, employee and management — to reduce time to hire and cost per hire. The round was also going toward continuing growth via hiring.

The deal with the Palo Alto, California-based company is Phenom’s first acquisition.

“My Ally has proven that its strong automation technology can scale to provide enterprise-level solutions, and their curious, energetic culture fits well with our own,” said Phenom CEO and cofounder Mahe Bayireddi in a statement. “We welcome My Ally, their employees, and their customers to the Phenom family.”

My Ally’s technology aims to alleviate some of the administrative tasks involved in recruiting by automating email-based interview scheduling. The function complements Phenom’s corresponding functionality in chatbot, email and SMS which reduces a recruiter’s time spent manually coordinating with candidates and hiring managers, the company said.

My Ally automates the scheduling of more than 20,000 interviews per month, leading to a significant dataset of interactions and learnings, the company said. Phenom’s hoping that these insights, along with the My Ally automation software, will link to billions of interactions in its talent experience management platform, “refining Phenom AI’s precision and efficiency in interview scheduling.”

“Phenom accounts for every step along the talent experience journey,” said Deepti Yenireddy, CEO and founder at My Ally. “By joining forces with Phenom, we are poised to take our automation technology to the next level. Customers will be blown away by how productive they can be with a single, comprehensive platform.”

Earlier this year, Phenom’s employee count was around 500 people across the globe, and about 200 people in its Ambler office. My Ally’s approximately 46 employees will be joining Phenom, a company spokesperson said.

“We acquired them primarily for their advanced automation technology, but their team also demonstrated the same core values that we look for, so it was a great fit,” the spokesperson added.

VP of Marketing Jonathan Dale told Technical.ly at the beginning of this year that the local office was aiming to grow by about 75 people during 2020, likely in roles relating to sales, marketing and customer success.

Dale said at the time that much of Phenom’s work was on further building the experience around applying, hiring and employee development. And it looks like that work will be bolstered by the My Ally acquisition, as Tim Guleri, managing partner at Sierra Ventures, an existing investor, said of the acquisition.

“Phenom continues to relentlessly deliver the most advanced AI and automation for HR technology, and this acquisition is a reflection of that,” Guleri said. “This deal is made possible by Phenom’s growth and the global demand for talent experience management. My Ally is an excellent addition and generates significant momentum for the next phase of Phenom.”