Phenom, a Philadelphia-area company that sells AI software for hiring and employee development, announced on 14 January 2026 that it had acquired Included, a Seattle-area startup that built an AI-native people analytics platform. Terms were not disclosed.
Phenom will integrate Included's technology into its Workforce Intelligence product and its wider AI platform. GeekWire reported that Included will not continue as a standalone brand.
The deal is Phenom's seventh acquisition, according to UNLEASH. It follows Phenom's purchase of resource management and talent mobility platform EDGE in 2025 and of employee data platform Tydy in 2024.
What Included built
Included was founded in 2021 by Raghu Gollamudi, Chandan Golla and Laura Close. It started out helping companies measure diversity, equity and inclusion efforts with data, and later broadened into general people analytics.
Phenom said Included developed its own algorithms to fix inconsistencies and gaps in HR data so it can be analysed and used by AI. That cleaned data sits on a common data model and ontology that can take in information from more sources and be adapted to each employer.
On top of that foundation, Included's software writes automated summaries in plain language about organisational health, hiring bottlenecks, workforce trends and outliers that may need attention. Users can question an AI agent in natural language and receive recommendations and action plans tailored to their role.
“We created Included to build the ultimate people experience solution. By becoming part of Phenom, we’re excited to bring agentic analytics to more HR professionals and executives.”
Why Phenom is buying
Phenom said many employers struggle to combine data from separate HR systems and to get useful insights out of it quickly, often relying on business analysts to do the work by hand. With Included, Phenom plans to give HR staff and managers a people analytics agent that draws on data from core HR, recruiting, engagement and performance systems.
The company listed predictive alerts based on its own ontology, dashboards and real-time charts for leaders, and AI-written reports aimed at hiring speed, productivity, burnout and skills gaps among the features of the combined product.
Phenom chief executive and co-founder Mahe Bayireddi said every acquisition the company makes is deliberate and selective, and that people analytics and workforce planning have become essential for building teams. Zachary Chertok, a research manager at IDC, said in the announcement that many companies still find it hard to get workforce insights to their leaders. He said the deal would make automated, contextual people analytics available across an organisation, from executives down to line managers.
Local outlet MyChesCo noted that the deal comes as competition for talent pushes employers to analyse workforce data and act on it faster, a job that has often needed specialist analysts or manual reporting.
The founders and the funding
Gollamudi, Included's chief executive, previously co-founded privacy software company Integris Software, which was sold to OneTrust in 2020, GeekWire reported.
Included raised a $1.9 million pre-seed round in 2021 from Flying Fish, SignalFire and Ascend, according to GeekWire. In May 2022 it raised a $3.5 million seed round led by Trilogy Equity Partners, with Flying Fish Partners, SignalFire and Alumni Ventures taking part, The SaaS News reported. Those two rounds add up to about $5.4 million.
Gollamudi said the founders created Included to build a complete people experience product and that joining Phenom would bring its agentic analytics to more HR professionals and executives.
Phenom's growing platform
Phenom is headquartered in Greater Philadelphia and has offices in India, Israel, the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom. Its software covers recruiting, career sites, interview scheduling, onboarding, internal mobility and workforce planning.
Bayireddi told UNLEASH that Included fits the company's product pipeline and its stated purpose of helping a billion people find the right work. With EDGE, Tydy and now Included, Phenom has made three acquisitions in three years that add employee data, talent mobility and analytics tools to its platform.
The announcement also promoted IAMPHENOM, the company's customer conference, scheduled for 10 to 12 March at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia.
