Zip’s IPO, Turing’s bucks, and more: news of the job board and recruitment marketing industry

December 15, 2020
JobBoardDoctor
0 Comments

Zip's IPO News is coming fast and furious this holiday season (such as Zip’s IPO), and so I will unleash a (slightly) early round up of the latest job board and recruitment marketing news (Plus next week has at least a few holiday ‘days off’ for many of us!). Zip is bringing back memories of Glassdoor’s endless ‘we’re getting ready to IPO’ rumors – you know, the ones that ended in acquisition by Recruit? Not saying that’s gonna happen, although I imagine Indeed’s management would love to squash Zip and take their clients. So let’s take a look at what’s happening!:

Turing gets the big bucks: Turing — which has built an AI-based platform to help evaluate prospective, but far-flung, engineers, bring them together into remote teams, then manage them for the company — has picked up $32 million in a Series B round of funding led by WestBridge Capital. It currently has a database of some 180,000 engineers covering around 100 or so engineering skills. Turing is not disclosing its valuation. But as a measure of its momentum, it was only in August that the company raised a seed round of $14 million, led by Foundation. Ok, I’m impressed.
Good and bad news from Jobindex: Danish job board Jobindex A/S (JOBNDX: CPH) reported revenue for the third quarter of DKK 68.7 million (€ million), a fall of 5.4% compared with the same quarter in the previous year. While the group’s results were impacted by the pandemic, the number of job ads posted has recovered and is now at approximately 110% of the level in January-February before the crisis. Jobindex said that during September and October job ad numbers recorded the largest number of job ads in a single month since the financial crisis. So 2021 may be good…
Workee raises funds: Danish job marketplace Workee has just closed a seed round. The funding was provided by several business angels including Michael Ritto, former CEO at Nordisk Film, and seasoned business people from the Keystones network. Together with a matching loan from the Danish state fund Vaekstfonden, the investment totals 2.25 million DKK (€300K). Founded in 2017, Workee is a lightweight mobile-first app that connects job-seekers with companies around them. Congrats!
Oops!: Indian job board IIMjobs reportedly suffered a database breach on Monday exposing personal data of nearly 1.4 million users that were registered on the website. The leaked data include the names, phone numbers, email addresses, location of the users, their industry work and links to their LinkedIn profiles. Not cool, folks.
ZipRecruiter to IPO?: According to Reuters, ZipRecruiter has hired Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase to prepare for an IPO that would launch next year. Despite having only partly recovered from the early-pandemic job slump, when ZipRecruiter laid off 500 staff, the firm is apparently keen to hit while the iron’s hot. They are hoping for a valuation of between $3 billion and $5 billion in the IPO, which could come before mid-year. Very interesting….
myGwork raises funds: myGwork, a business community for LGBTQ+ professionals, graduates, inclusive employers and anyone who believes in workplace equality, has raised £0.75m in a funding round led by 24Haymarket. The investment will allow myGwork’s founders, Adrien and Pierre Gaubert, to grow the team, develop the existing service offering further, to expand the business further in the UK and to sign up new clients overseas where there is already clear evidence of demand. In the near term the funding will be used to design and deliver a new app, develop myGwork’s much-requested mentoring offer and bring on new team members to focus on myGwork’s growth over the next two years.
Recruit shareholders sell: Japan’s staffing agency Recruit Holdings Co Ltd said on Monday its shareholders will sell 416.8 billion yen ($4 billion) worth of shares in the company as they continue to unwind cross-shareholdings. This is the third sale of shares by Recruit’s shareholders since the company went public in 2014. The sale comes amid a years-long trend of Japanese companies unwinding cross-share holdings. Japanese companies tend to hold stakes in each other, aiming to thwart bids from outsiders, but such practice has been criticized as it bucks the government push for better corporate governance. Intriguing.
InfoEdge revenue down: Info Edge India Ltd., the parent company of Naukri and 99Acres, continued to experience robust growth in net profit in the second quarter of FY2021 despite a drop in revenue. Revenue fell 19.1% year-on-year to INR 2.6 billion, while net profit surged 453% to INR 512 million from INR 93 million. The company’s profit amounted to INR 832.2 million in Q1. Basically good news, then.
Welcome raises funds: Welcome, the HR software that helps organizations make and close offers to new candidates, announced the close of a $6 million seed round . Welcome was founded in 2019 by Nick Gavronsky and Rick Pereira, with a mission to help organizations close offers on candidates by providing a much clearer picture of compensation, particularly around equity. Welcome allows companies to organize their compensation offers based on level and position, and deliver that information digitally to candidates in a way that makes sense. Good idea.
LinkedIn Ireland’s profits jump: Profits at the Irish arm of professional social network giant LinkedIn multiplied more than threefold last year. Accounts just filed for LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited Company show the Microsoft-owned group reported a profit before tax of $294.2 million (€245.9 million) in 2019, up from $84.8 million the previous year. The bulk of the increase was accounted for by intra-company transactions. The Irish unit, which manages LinkedIn’s operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), received $147.8 million in interest on loans, mostly to Microsoft Global Finance. In the meantime, national plaintiffs’ law firm Keller Lenkner LLC has filed a federal lawsuit against LinkedIn alleging unfair-competition, fraud, and breach-of-contract claims on behalf of a class of plaintiffs who purchased advertisements on the platform. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the complaint alleges that LinkedIn consistently overcharges advertisers because it inflates the advertising metrics on which businesses rely when placing bids to purchase LinkedIn advertising. Hmm.
FAMatch lands funding: FA Match, a data-driven solution for advisor recruiting, announced a $1M pre-seed funding round. The platform’s proprietary Advisor MatchTM technology enables advisors and firms to connect with one another based on a series of match criteria – including AUM, transition needs/support, location, advisor experience, firm type, and more – and ranks those matches on a 1-3-star scale. Both parties are only alerted of the most viable matches, making the entire process more streamlined, action-oriented, and cost-effective. Interesting idea.
Jobiak launches aggregator site: Jobiak announced the launch of its ‘All Jobs’ AI-based Global Jobs Distribution Platform (GJDP), a one-stop source to 100% of all jobs in real-time. It is a platform that provides access to every available online job, updated in real-time and with meta-search capabilities, making it easy to find relevant jobs. Jobiak’s first product focused on Google for Jobs. With the launch of the AllJobs platform, Jobiak adds a product that can provide access to any job and leverage the power of Google to drive 2-20x applicants to its partners. Hmm.
myInterview raises funds: myInterview, a smart video interview platform prioritizing personality in the hiring process, announced a $5 million Seed round. The funding will be used to expand the company’s sales, product, and R&D teams as it continues to grow in the US and UK markets and around the world. myInterview had previously raised $1.6 million in pre-seed funding, which included investment from former LinkedIn executive Cliff Rosenberg. Congrats!