The QIA was founded by the State of Qatar in 2005 to strengthen the country's economy by diversifying into new asset classes. Building on the heritage of Qatar investments dating back more than three decades, its growing portfolio of long-term strategic investments helps complement the state's wealth in natural resources. Qatar's goal is to become an international center for finance and investment management, a vision shared by its government, people, and institutions. It has a track record of investing in different asset classes, including listed securities, property, alternative assets, and private equity in all the capital markets as well as the newer emerging markets.

Qatar Investment Authority

Neuberger Berman is an independent and employee-controlled asset management company, providing global investment solutions. Neuberger Berman provides a broad range of global investment solutions to institutions and individuals through customized separately managed accounts, mutual funds, and alternative investment products. It was founded in 1939 and headquartered in New York, United States.

Neuberger Berman

Franklin Resources is a global investment management organization known as Franklin Templeton Investments. They have an extensive global presence, including offices in 35 countries and clients in more than 150. Their common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol BEN and is included in the Standard & Poor’s 500:registered: Index. Franklin Resources Inc. NYSE: BEN is an investment firm originally founded in New York in 1947 as Franklin Distributors, Inc. It is listed on the NYSE under the ticker BEN as in Benjamin Franklin, whom founder Rupert Johnson, Sr. admired. In 1973 the headquarters moved from New York to San Mateo, California. The firm specializes in conservatively managed mutual funds. It offers products under the Franklin, Templeton, Mutual Series and Fiduciary brand names. Like other large investment companies, the firm offers a wide variety of funds but is traditionally best known for bond funds under the Franklin brand, international funds under the Templeton brand, and value funds under the Mutual Series brand.

Franklin Templeton

Focused on Quality. Guided by Fundamentals. At ClearBridge Investments, our equity strategies all start with the same fundamental principle: the key to long-term success is selecting high-quality companies through rigorous research and analysis.  Introduced by Legg Mason, Inc. in 2005, ClearBridge Investments traces its asset management strengths back over 45 years to a number of prominent and well-established firms that have made meaningful contributions to our modern-day culture and investment philosophy.

ClearBridge Investments

Leumi Partners' services are delivered via our unique merchant banking platform and include investments by the Leumi Group, underwriting, financial analysis and research, strategic advice, Mergers and Acquisitions, as well as raising equity and debt.  Conducting investment or providing services, their goal is to maintain a close-knit partners promoting our partners' interests by presenting the most suitable solutions at any given time, whilst maintaining a long-term outlook.  Leumi Partners has led some of the most complex and challenging transactions in the recent years within the Israeli market in the recent year and manages the Leumi Group's of over NIS 7 billion investment portfolio.

Leumi Partners

Teca Partners is a long-biased public equity fund with a highly-concentrated portfolio. The fund invests with a long-term horizon and focuses on companies in the consumer and technology sectors.

Teca Partners

Apax Partners is an independent partnership focused solely on long-term investment in growth companies.

Apax Partners

CPP Investments's mandate is to invest in the best interests of Canada Pension Plan contributors and beneficiaries and to maximize investment returns without undue risk of loss. CPP Investments is a professional investment management organization that invests the assets of the Canada Pension Plan, not currently needed to pay pension, disability, and survivor benefits.

CPP Investments

Paycor

Paycor provides small and medium-sized companies with intuitive, cloud-based onboarding, HR, payroll, and timekeeping software with the goal of enabling businesses to be more efficient and to make smarter decisions about their people and processes. Its HR software utilizes in-house technology and the expertise of its staff to optimize people management that enables the business to attract top talent, create strategic benefit packages, and predict the future needs of the business. It was founded in 1990 and is headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio.

<div>Paycor is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and human capital management firm offering small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with talent management, payroll, expense management and HR solutions. Its HR solutions include time and attendance management, scheduling, and employee experience surveys. The talent management offering includes recruiting and onboarding software, while payroll and benefits features include tax processing and documentation, payments and benefits administration.</div>

Distributed workforces require new solutions for office operations, HR, payment, and more.

Remote Work Infrastructure

Paycor Launches New AI-Powered Assistant to Boost Productivity

<div>
 
 Paycor is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and human capital management firm offering small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with talent management, payroll, expense management and HR solutions. Its HR solutions include time and attendance management, scheduling, and employee experience surveys. The talent management offering includes recruiting and onboarding software, while payroll and benefits features include tax processing and documentation, payments and benefits administration.
 
 
 In September 2022, the company launched a mobile wallet for employees in partnership with Payactiv. This includes features such as budgeting tools, goal-based savings, discount marketplace and direct bill pay.
 
 
 In April 2023, the company acquired behavioral science firm Verb to integrate its workplace training solutions into Paycor&rsquo;s platform. Previously in October 2022, Paycor acquired Talenya, an AI-driven recruiting platform. The acquisition was expected to reduce the time needed for Paycor to fill key roles by sourcing active and passive candidates using Talenya&rsquo;s AI platform.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 As of February 2024, the company had over 30,000 customers and over 2.6 million employees using its platform.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In FY2023, Paycor reported revenue of USD 553 million, up 29% YoY, backed by a 23% growth in YoY bookings. However, the company reported USD 104.7 million in loss from operations (down from a loss of USD 139.6 million in FY2022), and a net loss of USD 93 million (down from a loss of USD 108 million in FY2022). Looking ahead, the company guided revenue to be between USD 650-654 million.
 
 
 The company was listed on the NASDAQ in July 2021, where it raised USD 425.5 million in its initial public offering.
 
</div>

ActivTrak is a cloud-based productivity monitoring software provider. The platform offers data and analytics which can be used to detect workplace productivity gaps. The platform collects data from employee activity logs and computer screenshots, although it does not log keystrokes or record video of a user’s screen. ActivTrak also facilitates a range of tasks for admins such as blocking websites, flagging suspicious activities, IP address connections, and monitoring web, and app traffic.Other features offered include productivity reports and coaching, headcount and workload management and personal insights. In November 2023, the company added capabilities to measure the usage of AI tools, automatically detecting and classifying the use of such tools and websites to help organizations manage and improve AI adoption across the workforce.Activtrak generates revenue via monthly subscriptions (USD 10 and USD 17) per user, and custom pricing for larger enterprises.Key customers and partnershipsAs of April 2024, over 9,500 enterprises used ActivTrak’s platform, notably including Allstate, asembia and Nobu. ActivTrak closed 2023 with a 40% growth in its customer base (adding ~2,200 customers).Funding and financialsIn November 2020, ActivTrak raised USD 50 million in a Series B round led by Sapphire Ventures. Sapphire Ventures CEO and managing director joined ActivTrak’s board as part of the deal. The new proceeds were earmarked for scaling global sales and marketing campaigns, expansion of its platform using AI driven analytics, and improving integration with its technology partners.

ActivTrak

inFeedo is a people predictive analytics company based in India. The Y Combinator-backed startup founded in 2013 is currently focused on “Amber” (launched in 2016), an AI-enabled bot that helps manage employee engagement, predict attrition, and get a pulse on company culture in real time. The company also offers AI-driven exit surveys and analytics to improve retention.Key customers and partnershipsAs of April 2024, over 700,000 users across 250 organizations utilized inFeedo’s platform. Notable clients included GE Healthcare, Puma, Tata Group, and Lenovo.Funding and financialsIn its latest funding round (<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9099">March 2022</a>) inFeedo raised USD 12 million in Series A funding led by Jungle Ventures, reportedly tripling its valuation from less than 18 months ago. The fresh funds will be used for its second employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) buyback for all employees and its go-to-market activities in North America. Further, the company claims it has achieved annual revenue of USD 1.6 million as of November 2020.

inFeedo

Donut provides solutions to keep employees engaged with casual conversations. Its first product, Intros, makes connections between teammates via Slack to emulate quick meetups and in-person introductions at work, which are now virtual.Donut’s new product, Watercooler, launched in October 2020. It attempts to reinvent the micro-interactions between employees at the office watercooler online. The product will integrate with Slack, where a newly-designated channel for Watercooler will be created. The product will post questions automatically within the customers’ desired frequency and pre-selected topics.The company uses a freemium subscription model with paid plans starting at approximately USD 2 per user per month.Key customers and partnershipsThe company claims it has supported four million connections (one million since the Covid-19 pandemic) across its 12,000 customers, including companies such as Okta, Zapier, Slack, The New York Times, and Invision.Funding and financialsDonut announced a USD 12 million funding round led by Accel, along with its new product, Watercooler. The USD 12 million raised was accumulated over multiple rounds before the Covid-19 pandemic, with proceeds earmarked for product development.

Donut

Matter is an employee feedback platform founded by Brett Hellman. Hellman was the founder of messaging app “Hall”, which was founded in 2011 and later sold to Atlassian for USD 20 million in 2015.Matter uses 360-degree feedback to evaluate skills in employees which are linked to career success. The platform links skills such as influence, inclusiveness, empathy, resourcefulness, and multitasking to evaluations. Matter is currently available in beta.

Matter

Mesh is a Y Combinator-backed company that allows employees to set goals, track tasks, share feedback, and engage in one-on-ones. The company also offers an AI coach (Mesh Maven) to help employees stay in line with their key objectives, improve the quality of feedback provided and summarize 1:1s. Mesh also offers nudges and surveys to improve employee engagement alongside relevant analytics.The company generates revenue via monthly subscriptions per user, priced at USD 4 (Base) and USD 7 (Premium).&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsAs of April 2024, the company served over 100+ enterprises, including NTT Data, Grant Thornton and Groww. The platform also offers integrations with third-party software such as Gmail, Microsoft Teams and Slack, among others.Funding and financialsIn its most recent funding round (<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9768">April 2022</a>) Mesh raised USD 11 million in Series A funding led by RTP Global. The fresh funds were earmarked to expand its global footprint across the US and APAC regions. In line with this, the company planned to expand its headcount across the engineering and sales departments.

Mesh

Companies offering tools to infer employee morale (through surveys and quick assessments) and productivity, including functions for goal setting, review, and feedback.

Companies that offer the entire spectrum of HR tools including payroll processing benefits, onboarding, compliance, analytics, scheduling etc

Companies providing either standalone or combined payroll and benefits services to businesses.

EoR - Companies that assist businesses in hiring distributed teams globally in compliance with foreign labor laws. EoRs become the legal employer of offshore employees. Solutions include payroll, benefits, and taxes.

PEO - Companies that offer similar services to EoRs but establish a co-employment arrangement with businesses and do not become the legal employer.

Companies offering tools such as chatbots, surveys, games, and other activities to infer, assess and improve employee morale and sentiment.

Companies that provide a centralized space for employees to access internal and external resources, enterprise applications, and enable workers to communicate across departments, and stay up to date on organizational announcements.

Solutions in this industry hub are predominantly offered under a B2B SaaS model

Employee and performance management solutions use AI/Ml to infer engagement insights and sentiment analysis

Offers tools for companies to hire contractors globally, and conduct employee and performance management

ANALYST_QUICK_TAKE

PROMINENT_CATEGORY

<div>
 Paycor HCM, a leading provider of human capital management software, has announced the launch of Paycor Assistant, its latest AI-enabled HR tool, available from Spring 2025.
 Paycor Assistant comes equipped with several innovative features designed to simplify HR processes. These include an intelligent search function with a conversational interface for processing HR requests; an HR Assist feature, enabled by GenAI technology, for locating and summarising key company documents; and a dedicated Admin Insights dashboard that provides vital productivity metrics derived from usage data, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and employee feedback.
 Paycor maintains the new AI assistant will significantly cut down administrative tasks and accelerate responses to HR-related inquiries. This development gives leadership more time to focus on strategic objectives such as talent management and enhancing business performance. Paycor Assistant is the latest addition to Paycor's suite of AI-powered solutions, which include intelligent skills management, candidate sourcing, and sentiment analysis capabilities.
 
</div> Analyst QuickTake: 
 After acquiring Talenya in <a href="https: 
//sp-edge.com/updates/13836"> October 2022 </a> , Paycor <a href="https: 
//www.paycor.com/hcm-software/smart-sourcing/"> integrated </a> Talenya's AI-driven recruiting technology into its product suite as "Paycor Smart Sourcing.” This recent development seems to build on this acquisition and integrate AI into Paycor's product offering.

Paycor

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