Phenom expands into Canada with its third acquisition this year.
Kitchener-Waterloo’s Plum has been acquired by Philadelphia-based Phenom, another human resources (HR) technology company also focused on talent assessment.
The acquisition, which closed last month and was announced last week, comes as employers confront a flood of AI-generated resumes, fabricated work histories, and deepfake interviews. Both companies declined to disclose the financial terms of the deal to BetaKit.
“We were both building toward a similar future from different angles.”
Caitlin MacGregor,
Plum
Phenom sells AI-powered talent intelligence software designed to help organizations hire, develop, and retain staff better. Plum’s tech will help Phenom measure the “durable human skills” that determine whether a candidate is successful on the job, such as adaptability, empathy, judgment, and resilience—the kinds of skills that cannot be faked with AI.
John Deal, senior director of product marketing at Phenom, told BetaKit over email that the transaction gives Phenom “a full assessment stack” to do just that.
“We were both building toward a similar future from different angles, and over time it became clear how complementary our visions were,” Plum co-founder and CEO Caitlin MacGregor told BetaKit over email.
All Plum employees have joined Phenom’s 1,600-person team as part of the deal. The transaction marks Phenom’s expansion into Canada, where MacGregor said Phenom plans to grow its team.
Plum is Phenom’s third acquisition this year, and second in the past 10 weeks: in January, it bought Seattle-based people analytics platform Included, and in February, the company purchased UK-based Be Applied, another skills assessment firm.
Plum was founded in 2012 “to democratize access to industrial-organizational psychology and help companies identify potential and predict performance,” MacGregor said. Using psychometric-based behavioural assessments and AI, Plum’s software platform helps large enterprises like Hyundai, Scotiabank, and Whirlpool measure candidates’ soft skills.
Today, Plum claims it can deliver scientifically validated predictions of how candidates will perform in a given role with accuracy proven four times greater than resume screening alone. MacGregor said the startup has also demonstrated it can reduce “one in three bad hires.”
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Phenom described Plum as “a pioneer in psychometric-based talent assessments.”
Plum had raised a total of $19 million CAD from a group that includes BDC Capital’s Women in Technology Venture Fund, Export Development Canada, Real Ventures, Pearson Ventures, JFF Ventures, Strada Education Network, EduLab Capital Partners, and Impact Engine. The HR tech startup’s last funding round was an $8-million financing in early 2023.
For its part, Gartner projects one in four job applicants globally will be fake by 2028. Deal said AI-generated resumes and deepfake interviews are a growing problem for employers, and noted bad hires can cost businesses as much as 30 percent of an employee’s first-year salary.
With the help of Plum, Phenom aims to provide tools to help companies address this challenge, fill roles with the right candidates, and reduce the risk of bad hires.
MacGregor said Plum can scale “in a much bigger way” by joining forces with Phenom.
“By combining [Plum’s] durable skills data with Phenom’s applied AI platform, we can bring a more complete and actionable view of people into everyday talent decisions,” MacGregor said. “That means organizations can directly measure and verify the durable human skills AI can’t replace, within the natural flow of how they hire and develop talent.”
Feature image courtesy Plum.