Talentsconnect AG secures seven-figure growth financing

The Cologne-based recruiting tech company talentsconnect underscores its ambitious growth plans and secures mezzanine financing from Pride Capital in the mid-seven-figure range. This special form of financing guarantees the company continued entrepreneurial independence and will further accelerate the recent double-digit growth. At the same time, the existing shareholders have also expanded their commitment with a seven-digit amount. talentsconnect already has a broad portfolio of around 250 large and medium-sized companies with recurring revenues, including Trusted Shops, Paracelsus Kliniken and DAX-listed companies such as E.ON, Deutsche Börse, Covestro and Siemens.

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Advantage in times of shortage of skilled workers: Recruit more effectively and faster

talentsconnect is a leading provider in the field of recruiting SaaS. The company operates independently and has grown strongly since 2019 without conducting external financing rounds. The core product is the so-called “JobShop”, which maps the customer’s career area and thus simultaneously transforms it into a central, data-driven job marketing platform. A special feature of the talentsconnect software solution is the direct-to-talent approach, which, like the JobShop, also follows an e-commerce logic. The data insights of the career area are combined with the successful functions of modern online stores – with the same simple goal: to attract people directly online for good offers or jobs.

Especially in times of a shortage of skilled workers and current developments such as the “Great Resignation”, active recruiting is increasingly becoming an integral growth and success factor for companies – this applies to start-ups as well as medium-sized businesses and large corporations. At the same time, this essentially important topic is often not in the hands of the companies themselves, but in those of “middlemen” such as headhunters or digital job boards. The direct line to the talents on the one hand and a deep insight into the own personnel marketing activities on the other hand are therefore missing – and thus also every prerequisite for a long-term successful recruiting. This is where talentsconnect comes in with its direct-to-talent approach: for a democratization of recruiting and the empowerment of companies to take control themselves.

The company will invest the financing primarily in the transformation of its growth model – from sales-led growth to product-led growth. In addition to the development of a self-service product, this will also involve the expansion of the partner network and a quadrupling of the customer portfolio by 2023 by opening up the software to small and medium-sized enterprises. In addition, the course is being set for future internationalization. With Pride Capital, talentsconnect is supported by a financing partner specializing in the software and IT industry, which has already been able to give companies a decisive boost with its growth financing in the past.

Mezzanine financing: advantages for talentsconnect and investors

“We are convinced that recruiters can only maintain an overview and do an excellent job in an increasingly competitive environment on the basis of intelligent technologies. Our mission is to enable companies and, more specifically, recruiters to successfully find, address and win talent themselves – in a data-based, transparent and, above all, independent manner. In order to implement our ambitious plans and at the same time maintain our entrepreneurial independence, we have consciously opted for mezzanine financing for the next growth phase. With Pride Capital, we now have a partner at our side who believes in our success just as we do,” explains Robin Sudermann, CEO and founder of talentsconnect.

Lars van ‘t Hoenderdaal, Managing Partner Pride Capital Partners, adds: “The customer portfolio is impressive, the ambitious founding team has a clear vision and the business model is scalable. The growth strategy matches our ambitions and experience from other portfolio companies. Talentsconnect is a perfect example of a portfolio company and we look forward to change the dynamic for recruiters together.”

About talentsconnect

talentsconnect is a recruiting tech company based in Cologne. It was founded in 2013 by Robin Sudermann, Lars Wolfram and Max Klameth. The core product is the data-driven personnel marketing platform “JobShop”, which as a software-as-a-service helps to address talents directly and to market jobs in a data-driven way. The company stands for “Direct-to-Talent” and enables its customers to recruit the right employees more independently of digital job boards and headhunters. talentsconnect employs around 85 people. The JobShop has been developed in recent years with more than 250 customers such as E.ON, McDonald’s, Viessmann, Fressnapf, OBI or Deutsche Börse and is also available for smaller companies since 2021.

More info at: talentsconnect.com

About Pride Capital Partners

Pride Capital Partners is a specialized private debt firm that supports profitable and growing companies in the software and ICT industry. Typical scenarios are growth, buy & build and management buy-out (MBO) transactions. The geographic focus is the Benelux and the DACH region. Pride Capital Partners has offices in Amsterdam, Cologne and Frankfurt.

Pride Capital Partners is financed by its own shareholders, institutional investors, high net worth individuals, family offices and (ex-)entrepreneurs. The portfolio includes Arcus IT, Spotzer Digital, Fivespark, Bright River, Bluefield Agency, Fairbanks, Netaxis and ScanmarQED as well as the German companies eKomi, Link11, moveXM, Kendox, Wagawin, GBC Gruppe and Architrave.

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