Today from HR Tech, Philadelphia-based Phenom People, the leader in Talent Relationship Marketing, announced it has closed a $6 million round of Series A funding led by Sierra Ventures. With the investment, Sierra managing director Tim Guleri will join Phenom People's board of directors.

Additionally, longtime human resources entrepreneur and innovator Rudy Karsan, the co-founder of Kenexa and Head of Karlani Capital, has joined the Phenom People board of directors.

'Sierra Ventures is backing Phenom People because of their unique approach to solving one of the biggest problems in HR,' said Guleri. 'Recruiters constantly face an uphill battle to bring in top-tier talent and TRM will be the industry standard to help them target, engage and nurture candidates at scale.'

Phenom People will use the funds to expand its sales, marketing, and product teams and continue to innovate and expand the capabilities of its products.

Surging Demand for Talent Marketing

Phenom People has experienced 300 percent growth that has resulted in delivering TRM to more than 70 customers in the last 18 months. Phenom People is automating TRM for global brands like Cisco, Deloitte, Safeway, Fidelity, and Hershey's.

'Phenomenal people want to work at phenomenal companies,' said Mahe Bayireddi, CEO and co-founder of Phenom People. 'We see a huge escalation in TRM demand because CEOs and CHROs understand that losing the battle for talent is not an option.'

It's Time for Talent Relationship Marketing

'Prior to Phenom People, the talent experience for most companies was similar to getting shaken down in the airport security line,' said Rudy Karsan, principal at Karlani Capital. 'If you don't believe me, CEOs should try to apply for a job at their own company and ask themselves - was that a phenomenal experience? I am very pleased to join the Phenom mission to empower companies to deliver a powerful and positive experience through the entire candidate journey.'

With more than 30 years of entrepreneurial, innovation and human resources technology experience, Rudy Karsan has been repeatedly recognized for his entrepreneurial and humanitarian achievements and is the author of a New York Times bestselling book, We: How to Increase Performance and Profits through Full Engagement. Prior to founding Karlani Capital, Rudy was lauded for co-founding Kenexa, where he built the company into a global provider of business solutions for human resources. The company was acquired by IBM in December 2012 to provide a platform for their Smarter Workforce initiative.

Talent Relationship Marketing Platform

Phenom People launched the industry's first Talent Relationship Marketing Platform in September 2015. Prior to this platform, automated talent marketing was impossible because tracking the intent of candidates across disparate career sites, social networks, online media, and third-party platforms was not feasible. Phenom People created an engine called the Phenom Enterprise Talent Graph that collects and analyzes candidate data and combines it with predictive intelligence to help candidates, recruiters and hiring manages find matches more effectively and efficiently - enabling a new approach to employee recruitment as powerful as CRM is for sales and marketing.

Phenom People is showcasing its TRM Platform at the HR Tech Conference in Las Vegas through October 21 at booth 727.

About Sierra Ventures
Founded in 1982, Sierra Ventures is a privately held venture capital firm that invests in early-stage emerging technologies and innovative business solutions. Sierra Ventures is known for its experienced investment team and proven 'hands on' entrepreneurial approach. The firm seeks out, invests in and evolves promising early stage start-ups to meet enterprise and consumer scale market demands by leveraging the team's unique skillsets, differentiated approach and proprietary capabilities. Sierra has invested in next generation HR tech companies like Hired.com, one of the fastest growing marketplaces for enterprise hiring.

A few of Sierra Ventures recent successful exits include the IPOs of InvenSense, Sourcefire, AuthenTec, and the acquisitions of Ooyala (by Telstra), Nexgate (by Proofpoint), Greenplum (by EMC), DynamicOps (by VMWare) and Bina Technologies (by Roche). Sierra has also backed prominent technology companies including Intuit, Healtheon, Active Software, Micromuse and Teradata.

About Phenom People
Phenom People is the leader in the Talent Relationship Marketing category. We are on a mission to help phenomenal companies attract phenomenal talent. To attract the best talent, companies must build relationships with their candidates through personalized digital experiences. The Phenom Talent Relationship Marketing Platform automates the process for driving awareness, interest, engagement and acquisition for talent. Phenom People has more than 70 customers and is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For more information, please visit www.phenompeople.com.