Open Assembly’s “future of work” consulting arm merged with HR technology startup Fulcrum Workforce Solutions Inc. The resulting firm — Bench Talent Cloud — aims to create virtual benches of skilled freelancer talent for enterprises.

The merger was facilitated with a new investment led by Communitas Capital, a New York-based venture capital firm, and Greatscale Ventures, a San Diego-based venture capital firm. Communitas was the original investor in Open Assembly, while Greatscale was the original investor in Fulcrum.

Bench Talent Cloud went live at the beginning of this month.

“We realized that enterprises wanted to work with qualified global freelance talent. They were more concerned with sourcing the best possible talent for a project rather than which platform or agency that skilled person was registered with — they wanted to create their own private community of experts from a multitude of sources all in one place,” Barry Matthews, president of Bench Talent Cloud and former CEO of Open Talent, told SIA. “We’ve created a virtual bench of experts from lots of different sources of supply.”

Bench Talent Cloud combines talent from online marketplaces, staffing firms and direct recruits into a single virtual bench.

Enterprises can go to the bench and see who is available, and the workers are background checked and screened, Matthews said. The workers can be brought on board within days.

The investment by Communitas and Greatscale is to grow the business and continue to develop the technology, Matthews said.

Serving as CEO of Bench Talent Cloud is Trevor Foster, co-founder of Fulcrum. Foster and Matthews also serve on Bench Talent Cloud’s board along with Doug Atkin of Communitas Capital, Tyson McDowell of Greatscale and Jeff Klenner, an independent board member at Fulcrum.

“Turning the fragmented market for Open Talent providers into something enterprise companies can actually use has been an opportunity we’ve been excited about for some time,” Atkin said. “Bench Talent Cloud is poised to do just that.”

The original Open Assembly community and brand will remain distinct from Bench Talent Cloud. Its mission is to develop a common process and common language for Open Talent.