How This Startup Is Aiming to Make HR Easier GuideSpark, a video platform for employees, has sparked investor interest.

Onboarding, training and employee retention are big expenses for companies of all sizes. To facilitate those and other HR functions, Menlo Park, Calif.-based GuideSpark helps companies create video content and web seminars on more than 100 HR-related topics, including benefits, compensation and healthcare. In addition to a loyal customer base, the company has racked up $42 million in venture capital.

GuideSpark CEO Keith Kitani began his career as an electrical engineer designing semiconductors in the 1980s. He founded his first startup, e-learning company Presedia, in 1999 and sold it to Macromedia in 2003. Kitani became senior director and entrepreneur-in-residence at Adobe after the computer software corporation acquired Macromedia in 2005.

Part of Kitani's role at Adobe was to scale up software-as-a-service enterprise products. It was an exciting challenge, he says, "but I realized I wanted to try and start a company one more time."