Bullhorn acquires Textkernel and other news of the job board industry

Acquisitions seem to be in the air – see Bullhorn acquires Textkernel, for example. Or Jobtoolz, or NetJobs, or… You get the idea. And could it be that Indeed’s traffic is falling? Read on to find out:

• Jobtoolz acquires Hirehive: Belgian-based recruitment platform Jobtoolz has acquired Hirehive, an Irish ATS. Jobtoolz is a recruitment platform for SMEs and organisations, with a strong focus on employer branding, an automated recruitment process and recruitment marketing. Hirehive allows businesses to organise their hiring, communicate with talent and review candidates as a team. Congrats!
• JobIndex pays out big dividend: Denmark-based recruitment marketplace JobIndex will pay out DKK90 million ($13.1 million U.S.) in dividends — a higher figure than its after-tax profit for last year (DKK 82.7 million). This represents a payout of DKK100 per share. The main beneficiary will be Kaare Danielsen, the company’s founder, majority owner and CEO. He will receive 93% of the total payout. Last year, Danielsen delisted the company from Nasdaq First North Growth Market Denmark. In other JobIndex news, net sales declined by. 8.0% year on year (y-o-y) to DKK98 million ($14.2 million U.S.) during the first three months of 2024. Interesting.
• Bullhorn acquires Textkernel: Bullhorn acquired Textkernel, an Amsterdam-based provider of AI recruiting tools for the staffing industry that include résumé matching, labor market analytics, semantic search and sourcing tools. Textkernel has more than 2,000 customers globally, including eight of the top 10 staffing firms, according to the post. Bullhorn’s acquisition of Textkernel follows another acquisition earlier this year of Mployee, a Netherlands-based front- and middle-office staffing software provider. Congrats!
• Indeed’s traffic falls: Traffic at Indeed is showing an alarming trend, with total visits dropping 10% globally — and 9.4% in the U.S. — between January and May. According to data from Similarweb and SEM Rush, Indeed had a total of between 578 million and 583 million visits a month in May. In the U.S., these figures were 263 million to 243 million, respectively, during the same month. This all comes on the heels of falling revenues. From April 2023 to April 2024, paid job postings on Indeed fell 12% (which was better than last summer’s 50% drop). Hmmm.
• GetWhy raises funds: GetWhy, a consumer research tech company that helps businesses carry out market studies and extract insights from video-based interviews using AI, has raised $34.5 million in a Series A round of funding from California-based VC firm, PeakSpan Capital. GetWhy, a consumer research tech company that helps businesses carry out market studies and extract insights from video-based interviews using AI, has raised $34.5 million in a Series A round of funding from California-based VC firm, PeakSpan Capital. The company’s big selling point is Bloom, an AI platform that analyzes video responses to questions and presents these as qualitative insights. Intriguing.
• Pracuj adds blue collar section: Grupa Pracuj’s Pracuj.pl, the leading recruitment site in Poland, has launched a dedicated section for blue-collar jobs. This new section currently features 17,462 blue-collar job listings out of a total of 88,357 postings. Pracuj.pl holds a dominant position in the local recruitment market for white-collar jobs. However, it faces significant competition in the blue-collar segment from the likes of OLX Jobs and PracazaRogiem. Good move.
• JobGet acquires Wirkn: JobGet acquired Wirkn, a recruiting platform with ATS, the ability for employers to create branded job sites and other functionality. Wirkn focuses on retail business at malls and other shopping centers. JobGet is based in Boston and produces an app for hiring hourly workers.  Wirkn serves a network of more than 17,000 mall, retail and restaurant locations. A meeting of odd names!
• NetJobs to be acquired?: Sweden-based job board operator NetJobs Group appears likely to be delisted from Stockholm-based Nasdaq First North after majority shareholder Henrik Kvick — via his investment company Trollholmen — offered to buy out minority shareholders in the company for SEK12.0 million ($1.2 million). NetJobs has been struggling for nearly a decade. During the period 2016-2022, it lost a total of SEK13.9 million ($1.3m) and lost SEK5.5 million in 2023 alone, excluding one-off items. In Q1 2024, it lost SEK1.7 million. Since 2016, revenue at NetJobs has more than halved. Hmm.

Never a dull moment in this industry, eh? Acquisitions, funding, weird names – and even a little bit of AI! It’s almost 100% likely that AI will pop up again next month. Until then…

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