TMA, a Dutch talent management software provider, has acquired BrainsFirst, a neuroscience-based cognitive assessment software company, marking its second acquisition of 2026 and fourth since partnering with Main Capital Partners in December 2024.
The transaction builds on TMA’s recent M&A activity, including the acquisitions of STYR, DecisionWise, and HMG, as the company continues to expand its capabilities and geographic footprint. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Founded in 2016, BrainsFirst develops game-based cognitive assessment tools designed to measure decision-making ability and cognitive potential. Its platform is used for early talent identification, workforce insights, career mobility, and sports talent scouting. The company operates in more than 12 countries and serves clients across sectors, including healthcare, government, sports, and business services.
TMA provides an integrated talent management platform that enables organizations to assess and develop employees across the full lifecycle, from hiring through performance management. Its offering includes tools for employee feedback, engagement measurement, and 360-degree reviews. With the addition of BrainsFirst, TMA now has more than 100 employees across the Netherlands, France, and the United States, serving over 1,000 customers.
The acquisition is intended to combine TMA’s psychometric and behavioral insights with BrainsFirst’s neuroscience-based cognitive data, creating a more comprehensive view of talent. The companies already share several customers, creating immediate cross-sell opportunities and potential for product integration.
By uniting insights into both motivation and capability, the combined platform aims to help organizations make more informed decisions around hiring, development, and workforce planning.
KEY QUOTES
“This acquisition represents another meaningful step in TMA’s growth journey. We see a strong strategic and cultural fit between both organizations, and we are confident this combination will further strengthen TMA’s position in the talent management market.”
Charly Zwemstra, Managing Partner & CIO at Main Capital Partners
“Together, we deliver the most complete and future-proof understanding of talent on the market. By uniting Neuroscience (the cognitive and neurobiological processes measured through game-based assessments) with Psychometrics (personality, motivations, and behavioral preferences), we create a talent insight that is richer, more predictive, and more human. This fusion results in a uniquely human-centric, powerful, and bias-reduced talent profile, so robust and distinctive that organizations simply can’t afford to ignore it. It empowers companies to make smarter, fairer, and more forward-looking decisions in hiring, development, team design, and strategic workforce planning. The outcome: people in roles where they truly thrive, boosting performance, engagement, and long-term success.”
Glenn Frijde, CEO of TMA
“By combining TMA’s behavioral insights with our neuro-cognitive data, we are unlocking a new era of predictive talent intelligence. We are creating a future-proof ecosystem that translates complex human potential into scalable, data-driven organizational performance.”
Andries van der Leij, Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer at BrainsFirst
“For years, neuroscience has offered a pure, unbiased look at cognitive capacity. By joining TMA, we can map this objective data onto rich behavioral profiles while strictly safeguarding the scientific integrity of both disciplines. It is the perfect marriage of ‘can do’ and ‘want to do’.”
Dr. Ilja Sligte, Co-Founder & Chief Science Officer at BrainsFirst
