Temp Holdings to Invest in WhoKnows Inc., driving employee productivity through collaboration

Temp Holdings Co., Ltd. (based in Shibuya Tokyo, president Masamichi Mizuta, hereinafter called Temp Holdings), a temporary staffing and placement service company, a company of PERSOL Group, has invested in WhoKnows, Inc. (based in Redwood City, California, CEO Chris Macomber hereinafter called WhoKnows). The investment was made via Temp Innovation Fund LLC (based in Shibuya, Tokyo, CEO Takeyuki Kato, hereinafter called Temp Innovation Fund), who leads the group in investment to create new businesses and services by open innovation.

■Purpose of Investment

 In recent years, machine learning has transformed HR and recruiting. This transformation begins with a better understanding of professionals. WhoKnows offers the first cognitive professional profiles by automatically deriving and measuring skills, relationships, and experience. Then, we help companies leverage their talent through collaboration, people analytics, and talent acquisition solutions.
 We believe that the technology provided by WhoKnows can contribute to optimizing human resource utilization at many companies worldwide, thus we have decided to invest.
 Temp Holdings will continue to invest via Temp Innovation Fund in the innovative HR Tech domain, to realize Temp Group vision: “Create social infrastructure for people and organizations that catalyze growth and innovation.”

■Overview of WhoKnows, Inc.

 WhoKnows technology leverages ambient data and analyzes it through its patented Discovery Engine to provide cognitive profiles. These profiles are sematic, weighted and provide evidence backed skills to validate employee expertise. With WhoKnows, HR teams are able to have more accurate employee skills data and the powerful WhoKnows Analytics portal to understand their talent. Employees have tools that help them to collaborate and understand their own knowledge gaps and career paths. WhoKnows is on the forefront of the HR shift for people analytics based on analysis of big data and AI while providing easy tools that people can use. The solution helps companies drive employees to higher productivity and retention as well as enhance innovation through proactive collaborations.

■Reference：Overview of Temp Innovation Fund