Capital D takes majority stake in disruptive recruitment marketing technology company VONQ
- capital D acquires 54% stake in disruptive recruitment marketing technology business VONQ
- VONQ, based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, has grown at over 30% p.a. over the past years as a result of its distinctive proposition to hiring teams
- VONQ founders and capital D commit substantial additional follow-on capital to accelerate growth
- The investment to further boost VONQ’s commercial objective to empower hiring teams with recruitment marketing technology
Amsterdam (NL), 28 October 2019 – VONQ, a disruptive recruitment marketing technology business, has sold a majority stake to capital D, the private equity fund investing in disruptive mid-market companies across Europe.
VONQ’s market opportunity is substantial, with nearly 3 million job vacancies (source: European Statistical Office) open in its core markets in June this year. Coupled with the ever-increasing talent shortage on a global scale , this illustrates the importance for companies of using the best recruitment marketing technologies in the ‘war for talent’.
VONQ’s commercial objective is to empower hiring teams with recruitment marketing technology to attract the right applicants themselves. To achieve this objective, a significant part of the investment will be dedicated to further strengthening the capabilities of the VONQ technology, as well as leveraging the technology via robust marketplace strategy in Europe and the US. By integrating with more than 2,000 media channels (incl. generic and niche job boards, aggregators, online hubs & communities, social media channels, e-commerce, news sites, and even apps), VONQ’s recruitment marketing technology addresses major challenges of the traditional recruitment agency model: cost and speed to hire, whilst ensuring quality of candidates. The brain of VONQ’s technology, the media recommendation algorithm, leverages job performance data insights to create the best possible channel recommendation for each and every job, thereby empowering hiring teams to post job advertisements automatically and programmatically.
Wouter Goedhart, Co-founder and CEO of VONQ, said: “We are delighted to have secured this significant investment from capital D. The team is very experienced in taking companies to the next level. In capital D, we’ve found a partner that can further accelerate our growth and help us increase the reach of our recruitment marketing technology on a global scale. We see this as a great opportunity to continue to empower hiring teams to attract the right applicants.”
Jean-Marc Jabre, Co-founder of capital D, said: “Our focus is on business models which transform industries. VONQ and its leadership team have created an outstanding platform in HR Tech. We see in VONQ the opportunity to become a platform that redefines and resets recruiting for enterprise clients and we look forward to partnering with the team.”
About VONQ
VONQ empowers hiring teams to attract the right applicants.
VONQ serves nearly 1,000 corporate clients, including several Fortune 500 customers, such as Lidl and BMW Group Netherlands, among others. Operating from four offices in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Dusseldorf and London, VONQ offers recruitment marketing technology to turn passive and active candidates into qualified applicants. Being the global gateway to attract applicants, our fully algorithm-powered technology offers recruitment teams access to all the media channels in the world and helps them select the most relevant channels for their jobs. To steer recruitment teams’ success, we offer performance data analytics and job market insights – all possible to access via their ATS or as a stand-alone solution.
About capital D
capital D is a pan-European private equity fund manager founded in 2017 to focus on investing in mid-market companies that show clear evidence of transforming legacy business models or have demonstrable potential to do so. Agile companies are disrupting industries across almost every sector. capital D seeks to be their partner of choice and has a distinctive approach integrating three competencies: intelligence, investment and impact.
capital D seeks to invest €20 to 60 million alongside founders/ managers who are making the future today. This transaction represents capital D’s second platform investment and follows the acquisition of a majority stake in Invincible Brands, a leading digital native brands group in Europe, focussing on beauty, health and wellness.