Indeed and Talroo go CPA: news of the job board industry

It’s hard to believe it’s been 4 weeks since the last news roundup – but it has! In the meantime, DHI has gotten weird (see last week), a bunch of companies have landed funds, and the big players like Talroo are still, um, playing. So enough with the intro, let’s get to the news:

• Canvas raises big money: Canvas, a recruiting platform that focuses on diversity hiring, closed a $50 million Series C round, giving the company a valuation of $400 million. At the same time, it launched a new product, Canvas Diversity Analytics & Benchmarking, which provides companies with data insights and diversity benchmarks. Canvas plans to use the Series C  funding to expand its reach into industries and verticals outside of technology, and address issues related to the later stages of workers’ careers. Wow!
• Grupa Pracuj to go public: Polish company Grupa Pracuj, which operates the No. 1 recruitment vertical in Poland Pracuj.pl and the leading Ukrainian job site Rabota.ua, has submitted a prospectus to the Polish Financial Supervision Authority together with an application for its approval in connection with the planned initial public offering on Warsaw Stock Exchange this year. Grupa Pracuj’s recruitment sites were used in 2020 on average by 6.8 million users per month, including 3.1 million in Poland and 3.7 million in Ukraine. In FY2020, Grupa pracuj saw revenue of PLN 299.3 ($76.2 million U.S.) – down by 18.5% from 367.5 million Polish zlotys in FY2019). Congrats!
• YouCruit raises cash: YouCruit announced it received an $11.5 million investment to support the continued growth of its trucking industry marketplace application. YouCruit has built its trucking industry labor marketplace application Lanefinder — to offer drivers a simple way to explore available industry positions. The company has raised $20.5 million in total for developing niche industry recruiting applications. Interesting.
• Recruiter.com launches new product: Recruiter.com has launched Amplify, an AI-powered solution for proactive candidate outreach. Amplify leverages Recruiter.com AI software to search and market to passive candidates, transforming job posting into an active talent identification and engagement process. Amplify productizes proprietary technology from two recent corporate acquisitions: the AI software of Upsider and the job posting technology of Uncubed. Intriguing.
• NewWork moves into new digs: New Work is going to move more than 900 employees to its new headquarters in Hamburg on Sept. 16. New Work operates one of the largest online business networks in the German-speaking countries. Its main brand Xing, a LinkedIn competitor, has seen a rise in membership levels with 1.4 million people signing up to the business, taking total membership to 19.5 million.  Kununu, New Work’s employer review platform, now hosts around 5.4 million workplace insights. Congrats!
• Blue-collar recruitment platform lands cash: Vahan, an Indian recruitment platform for blue-collar workers, has raised $8 million in its Series A round, led by existing investor Khosla Ventures. Founded in 2016 by Madhav Krishna, Vahan is a technology-driven platform that helps blue-collar workers find jobs and employers, the right candidate. The startup has built tools, including an AI-driven bot on instant messaging platform WhatsApp, that are used to recruit workers at large scale and save blue-collar workers from exploitation at the hands of middlemen, the company said. Cool!
• Apna raises big bucks: Recruitment startup Apna is the latest Indian company to join the coveted unicorn club after a fresh round of funding. Founder Nirmit Parikh announced that Apna has raised $100 million in a Series C funding round led by Tiger Global, at a post-money valuation of $1.1 billion. The app-based service focuses on blue collar workers. Impressive!
• Paradox acquires Traitify: Recruiting software provider Paradox will acquire Traitify, a mobile-first assessment platform. Traitify was built to be visual and mobile-first, which helps increase its assessment completion rates to more than 96%. Paradox Chief Product Officer Adam Godson said the acquisition will remove obstacles for hourly candidates trying to find a job quickly, and simplify hiring for managers and high-volume recruiting teams. Sounds like a smart move.
• Hired launches new tool: Hired launched a new sourcing tool, Diversity Goals, that’s designed to provide employers of all sizes with a streamlined process for sourcing and engaging underrepresented technology candidates. The product identifies DEI candidates using EEOC practices and can address both on-site and remote needs. The tool relies on self-reported information provided directly from candidates through a voluntary survey. Hmm.
• Seek does stuff: Australia-based Seek delivered its first set of full-year accounts since the company was restructured into two entities — Seek, it’s core classified business, and the Seek Growth Fund. Full-year group revenue was flat, increasing 1% to A$1.6 billion ($1.2 billion U.S.). EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) increased 15% to A$474 million ($341.5 million). Net profits increased 58% to A$141 million ($101.6 million U.S.). In other news, the company  acquired a 10 percent stake in South Korea’s dominant job portal provider Jobkorea, a move that is expected to help the latter enhance its competitiveness in IT-based job listing platform operation and go global. They never stop!
• ‘No vaccination’ job boards appearing: Job boards for sharing open roles at companies that do not require employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 have been popping up online as vaccine mandates are becoming more common. One board is hosted on Gab, the social media platform that has been embraced by some conservatives and members of the far-right. In an email sent to users on Wednesday, Gab CEO Andrew Torba announced the “No Vax Mandate Job Board.” Another site marketing itself to job seekers who are looking to avoid vaccine mandates, NoVaxMandate.org, says it believes “no right is more sacred than the right of every individual to the control of their own person, free from all restraint or interference of others.” Hmm. What a dumb idea!
• Talroo adds CPA: Programmatic job advertising service Talroo has launched targeted cost-per-application (CPA) services, an extension of its recruitment efforts based on pay-for-performance. U.S.-based Talroo is an outgrowth of recruitment marketplace Jobs2careers, which was founded back in 2010. CPA seems to be making an impact.
• Glassdoor acquires Fishbowl: Glassdoor has acquired Fishbowl — an app that gives users an anonymous option also to provide frank employee feedback, as well as join interest-based conversation groups to chat about work, and search for jobs. The acquisition is technically being made by Recruit Holdings, the Japanese employment listings and tech giant that acquired Glassdoor for $1.2 billion in 2018, and the companies are not disclosing any financial terms. Fishbowl will be used to give Glassdoor another set of tools now to see how it might build out its platform beyond workplace reviews. Interesting move.
• Veremark raises cash: Global pre-employment screening startup Veremark has raised $2.8 million in seed funding round to introduce API offering to recruitment service providers and extend outreach in remote working environment, according to media reports. Like other background check services, it simplifies the hiring process by scoring applicants based on references, credit, identity, civil, criminal record, bankruptcy global sanctions and adverse media checks on prospective employees. It conducts psychometric tests and other assessment methods to verify academic credentials and employment history. Congrats!
• Workstream lands $48M: Workstream has raised $48 million in a Series B round co-led by Mary Meeker’s BOND and Coatue, with notable investors including Zoom CEO Eric Yuan and DoorDash CEO Tony Xu. Workstream has been able to carve out some attention for itself by focusing on text-based recruiting. The company views itself as an end-to-end recruitment tool for the hourly worker, but its distribution is still tied to the some 25,000 job boards that it partners with to post listings. Interesting.
• Indeed moving to CPA: According to AIM Group, Indeed’s new strategy for sponsored posts will accelerate the industry’s move away from CPC (cost per click) to cost per applicant pricing (CPA). The expectation is that Indeed will end CPC pricing by the end of the year. The company is also expanding its programmatic network. Never a dull moment!

I told you it had been busy! Just when I think funding will slow down – it doesn’t. Same with acquisitions. Who’s next? Who knows? I guess we’ll find out…next time around.

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