Tokyo-based Temp Holdings Co. Ltd., the ninth-largest staffing firm in the world, invested in Palo Alto, Calif.-based Percolata Corp.

Founded in 2011, Percolata collects data to predict shopper traffic at retail stores; it uses analysis of that data to propose optimal shifts for employees. The proposal of optimal shifts to increase revenue for the retailer becomes more accurate over time as more data is used to improve Percolata’s machine learning models.

“In recent years, the field of ‘people analytics’ that analyzes personnel information, and predicts performance, recruitment requirements, internal allocation, etc. is receiving a lot of attention,” Temp Holdings stated. 

The investment was made via Temp Innovation Fund LLC, based in Shibuya, Tokyo.

Temp Holdings last month made an investment in online staffing firm Wonolo; this followed a December investment in Hack Reactor LLC, a coding boot camp based in San Francisco.