Extra, Extra!: FlexJobs, Adzuna, and more news of the job board industry

You may have noticed that my news updates are usually about 4 weeks apart. I like to gather up what’s happened, give you a reliable rundown, and then talk about other things in the intervening weeks. But sometimes the news just comes out in such a burst (like FlexJobs, for instance) that I have too much news. That’s where we are this week, folks – some extra news that has happened since the last update. So what’s happening? Let’s take a look:

• Adzuna’s IPO: U.K.-based job aggregator Adzuna is planning to list on the London Stock Exchange with a valuation of up to £100 million ($137 million U.S.). The UK newspaper The Telegraph reports that the letter from equity investment platform Crowdcube states that Adzuna is looking for a valuation of “at least £70 million” and cites sources that suggest the final valuation will be between £80 million and £100 million. Adzuna now operates in 16 separate countries and trawls hundreds of job sites to list around 12 million jobs each month. Congrats, folks!
• Nomad Health raising funds: Nomad Health, an online talent platform that matches travel nurses with healthcare facilities, announced $63 million in equity and debt financing. This brings total funding raised at the New York-based firm to more than $100 million. Revenue at the company this year to date has already more than doubled full-year 2020 revenue. It also increase its internal corporate team to more than 170 employees. Impressive.
• CrowdWorks acquiring Kodearu: Japan-based freelance marketplace CrowdWorks is poised to take over Kodearu, a local freelance platform specializing in IT. CrowdWorks attributed the acquisition to the rise of remote working requiring companies to increasingly digitize. Founded in 2015, Kodearu has attracted over 15,000 IT highly-skilled freelance IT professionals, mainly web engineers. CrowdWorks expects the two complementary companies to profit from synergies, develop customers in collaboration with each other and work towards the creation of new core businesses. Makes sense.
• LinkedIn getting into paid events?: LinkedIn is running a test around events — specifically, paid events. “Amid the changing world of work and transition to a nearly all-remote workforce, LinkedIn Events has seen a surge in growth, with 21 million people attending an Event on LinkedIn in 2020,” said Nicole Leverich, LinkedIn spokesperson. LinkedIn has been working in and around events for years, starting with its Events hub that it first debuted in 2019, before the days of the pandemic and with a focus on in-person get-togethers. A logical development.
• FlexJobs acquires Job-Hunt: FlexJobs announced Thursday that it acquired Job-Hunt.org, a website that provides career advice for job seekers. Job-Hunt’s website includes more than 1,000 articles on job searches and careers. Job-Hunt also provides free e-books to job seekers covering topics such as networking for introverts and negotiation strategies.  Congrats, FlexJobs!
• Glints sees revenue and losses increase: Singapore-based recruitment marketplace Glints saw its revenue more than quadruple last year, while its losses expanded to $3.9 million from $1 million in 2019. One of the ways the service differentiates itself from other job classifieds active in its markets, like LinkedIn, JobStreet and CakeResume, is by building a “full-stack” of services for people who want to advance their careers. Founded in 2013, Glints says it has been used by more than 1.5 million professionals and 30,000 organizations. Interesting.
• Gem becomes unicorn: Gem announced $100 million in Series C funding at a $1.2 billion valuation to accelerate its growth. Gem enables companies to do proactive hiring: sending hundreds of emails, hosting events, running branded email campaigns and ad spending to engage with talent. Gem is seeing adoption from large enterprises and is looking at an international expansion in the next year in Western Europe and parts of Asia Pacific. It intends to use the new funding to expand into new markets and on sales and marketing. Sounds promising.
• WurkNow raises funding: WurkNow, a Riverside, Calif.-based digital staffing and workforce management platform for hourly work, closed a $10m Series A funding. The company intends to use the funds to further optimize its user base and product offering, including investments in new product development, staff growth and scaling its brand and market presence. WurkNow is a staffing and workforce management platform for hourly work that integrates people and technology by consolidating the entire employment experience into one digital experience. Intriguing.
• Oyster lands funding: Oyster, a company that provides hiring technology, announced investments from PayPal Ventures and HR Tech Investments, an affiliate of Indeed. Oyster provides services to globally distributed companies dealing with contractual and full-time employees across the world. The HR tech firm helps companies hire employees, manage HR and payroll and automate local compliance, according to its website. Its services are available in 91 countries. Interesting.
• Clovers raises seed funding: U.S.-based interviewing startup Clovers raised $15 million in a seed funding round to develop new products for improving unbiased hiring practices, expanding workforce and building brand. Clovers provides real-time questions and guidance to interviewers and post-interview intelligence about candidates. Adaptable to existing workflows, ATS and video conferencing platforms, it assists employers throughout the interviewing process. Right product, right time?
• Multiverse raises lots of cash: After rebranding from White Hat and raising $44 million earlier this year, tech apprenticeship startup Multiverse has raised another round of funding. The company today announced that it has closed $130 million in a Series C round. Apprenticeships on the platform currently range from roles in data science and adtech (“programmatic pioneer” is one) through to administrative and operational roles and they cover placements in tech companies, finance organizations and more, and are both on-site and remote. The startup also has been trying to leverage its place in tapping people who might not fit into more traditional job channels, to bring more diversity into the wider talent pool, which has found a willing audience among organizations looking to bring more diversity and inclusiveness into their own ranks. Very interesting.
• Recruiter.com launches job board for recruiters: Recruiter.com has launched Jobs.Recruiter.com, a new job site for recruiters. Jobs.Recruiter.com is a recruitment marketplace with a pay-per-listing model, from $297 per job post, that also lets job-seekers apply through registration. U.S.-based Recruiter.com has a network of 30,000 on-demand recruiters. Good luck!

See? I told you there was a lot of extra news! The acquisitions and funding and growth continue, and once again, note that this is happening all over the globe. It’s a good time to be in our industry! See you next time.

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