NetSuite has added human capital management (HCM) to its core ERP and financials offerings through the purchase of Waterloo, Ont.-based TribeHR, a deal that comes after a year and a half of searching for the right human resource addition, according to the cloud software company.

TribeHR, founded in 2009, will stay in Waterloo after the acquisition is completed. As TribeHR is privately held, financial details were not discussed. TribeHR founder and CEO Joseph Fung said that all of the company’s Waterloo-based development and support staff would stay with the company through the acquisition.

The companies were no stranger to each other prior to tying the knot. Earlier this year, TribeHR created its own SuiteApp connection to NetSuite, an application that was demonstrated on the main stage of the NetSuite’s SuiteWorld customer and partner event this past spring. To date, the companies have “nearly 30” joint customers, and the plan is to grow that joint business.

The acquisition should also increase TribeHR’s exposure to the channel. As a relatively young company, TribeHR was still largely engaging in direct sales, although Fung said it had started to develop a channel of VARs and service provdiers, as well as larger cloud-based vendors, including Salesforce.com and NetSuite itself. On the other hand, NetSuite has a fairly broad partner ecosystem for a pure-play cloud software company, and TribeHR can grow through greater exposure to that broader NetSuite partner base.

“The deal was just announced today, and we’ve already had great interest not just from our own resellers, but from existing NetSuite resellers interested in getting signed on as TribeHR resellers as well,” Fung said.

Fung said it’s too early in the process to discuss the details of the channel integration plan, but that growing TribeHR’s footprint in the NetSuite channel is a key opportunity to grow the business, and that the company will also look to onboard any traditional TribeHR partners who haven’t worked with NetSuite into the vendor’s partner community.

NetSuite gets its long-sought human resources component, and Fung said TribeHR gets to accelerate the development of its products as a result of access to NetSuite resoruces.

“Our technical team is very excited about this deal. There aren’t a lot of companies that have the technical depth and expertise that NetSuite does,” he said. “It’s great to be working with an organization as professional and thoughtful as NetSuite is. This will bring additional sales opportunities and fantastic technical resources as well.”

Details of the integration roadmap are not immediately clear, but given the cultures and cloud-based focus of both organization, Fung said he expects to be able to quickly integrate TribeHR into NetSuite.