The employee engagement world continued to shake up last week — this time across the pond. London-based WorkAngel and global HCM player Ceridian completed a joint venture agreement to create LifeWorks, a mobile employee engagement platform.

Even though investment slowed down toward the end of the year, 2015 was a banner year for HR technology — the best since 2001 for U.S. startups and a year that included a billion-dollar quarter. Depending on whose numbers you look at, investment in HR and HCM startups was north of $2 billion for the year. What should industry watchers expect in 2016 as this capital begins working its way into the system?

At TSCIU, we see our role as being a leader in determining what’s coming in the HCM tech market. Too often, analysts lag behind, reporting on where the industry is, not where it’s going, and not putting any skin in the game on where it should go. As a result, in HCM and enterprise software, we’re lacking perspective on the future. TSCIU will take risks, and we will undoubtedly be proved wrong on some counts. But, we’re not passive observers. We’re intellectually and emotionally engaged in the future of HCM as central in enterprise software.