Buy, Sell, and Raise: news of the job board and recruitment marketing world

July 11, 2017
JobBoardDoctor
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Latest News 1 OK, so I finally got tired of writing about Google! Plus an amazing amount of stuff has been happening in our corner of the world economy. So it’s time to take a look at the wheelings and dealings of our industry:

Babajob is sold: Online classifieds site Quikr India Pvt. Ltd has acquired blue collar jobs listing company Babajob in a mostly-stock deal. Neither company provided details on the terms of the merger, but it is widely seen as a distress deal since Babajob had been struggling to raise money. By my count, this is the 14th acquisition in our industry since the first of the year.
TheMuse buys Brand Amper: The Muse has acquired Brand Amper, a brand building tool that enables companies to collect data and actionable insights on their culture, values, and employee sentiment. The acquisition enhances The Muse’s employer branding capabilities. Logical move and good use of their VC money.
Ziwork lands some funding: The Chinese freelancing website Ziwork.com secured “several tens of millions” of RMB (several million U.S. dollars) in a series A funding round. The funding round was led by the celebrity VC Zhang Suyang, as well as Banyan Capital. What can we say, freelancing is hot with VCs!
CareerBuilder is really sold: After a few false starts, a Canadian pension fund and private equity firm Apollo Global Management has bought a majority share of CareerBuilder. The price was not disclosed, but various calculations put the cash value between $600 million and $654 million, though industry sources placed the price tag at $500 million. The current owners — TEGNA and Tribune Media Company, both of which are TV and digital publishers, and newspaper and online publisher McClatchy — which collectively own 100% of CareerBuilder, will retain about 24.3% when the deal closes, sometime in the 3rd quarter of the year.
Textio raises cash: Textio, the Seattle startup that provides an “augmented writing” platform to help companies put together better job postings, has raised $20 million to expand its offerings to other types of business writing. The service analyzes hiring outcomes data from more than 250 million job posts to score a listing. Textio plans to expand to other types of business interactions, such as recruiting emails and sales communications. I won’t be surprised if someone like LinkedIn or Indeed snaps them up.
Indeed Prime spreads its footprint: Indeed has launched its global tech marketplace Indeed Prime in 16 more cities, to bring the total number of cities it serves to 22. In other news, Indeed is not listing its jobs via the new Google jobs markup – which means they won’t show up at the top of Google searches. Interesting.
Hosco raises funding: The Swiss job recruitment platform Hosco – which focuses on the hospitality sector – has raised €6.44 million in Series A funding. Hospitality is hot!
Headstart launches: Headstart is a just-launched startup that works to discover candidate information and whether they have the technical expertise as well as a cultural fit with a company and then helps them connect. On the employer side, it parses through thousands (or tens of thousands) of employee surveys and data to figure out the parameters of a company’s culture and technical requirements. Can you say machine learning?
OnboardIQ raises more funding: OnboardIQ wants to make applying for hourly work less of a hassle, with a mobile-first platform for employers to reduce the time they spend finding and hiring qualified workers. Now, three years in, the company has raised $9.1 million to expand their product and customer reach. Since being founded, the company has processed more than 3.5 million applications and facilitated 400,000 hires. Interesting.
Side raises a 2nd round: Paris-based Side, a platform connecting companies and freelancers, has raised €5 million from several investors. The company had previously raised €1.3 million in October 2016 from Connect Ventures. Side is focusing on students, who only have part-time availability and are looking to gain work experience. So far, 600 companies rely on Side in London, Paris and Lyon. It wouldn’t be a news roundup without the French!
The Pracuj Group lands funding: The Pracuj Group, a Polish company providing online HR and job recruitment services in Central Europe has received an investment from US firm TCV, marking its first investment in Poland. Pracuj operates a number of online job recruitment portals such as Pracuj.pl, eRecruiter; Rabota.ua, and emplo.com.
XING buys Prescreen: XING has acquired Prescreen, provider of the Prescreen candidate management system. The basic purchase price is €17 million and will rise by between €5 million and €10 million from earn-out payments in the future. Prescreen is one of Europe’s fastest growing ATS providers with around 350 corporate clients. Smart move by the leading competitor of LinkedIn in the German market.