France's HelloWork devises €50 million acquisition spree

HelloWork, a France-HQed provider of online job search, recruitment tools and skills training, is investing €50 million to conduct merger and acquisition activity.

The four-year M&A budget follows buoyant sales at the Rennes-HQed company, whose order book grew 33% to €94 million in FY2022.

HelloWork's cornerstone investor is Télégramme Group, a French media, sports and entertainment firm.

More than 1 million monthly users access HelloWork's mainstream job search tool, JobiJoba, active across France, Germany and the UK.

JobiJoba, which last year achieved above 100% international sales growth, was in itself an acquisition play. HelloWork acquired the IP in 2018, and subsequently bought up fellow HR tech companies Diplomeo, Seekube and Basile.

Now HelloWork proposes to elevate its acquisition spend, aiming to fund larger HR and edtech deals to solidify its role as a European HR champion.

David Beaurepaire, HelloWork's vice president of M&A activity, said: "We are proud of the acquisitions of the past four years.

"We made some mistakes and learned a lot in the process—all against the backdrop of Covid-19. While it hasn’t always been easy, the past four years have changed our company’s dynamics for the better and brought a lot of great people together. "

In addition, certain French local authorities have partnered HelloWork to implement bespoke job search/recruitment tools marketed under the company's white label HR brand, SmartForum.