VANCOUVER, CANADA and PARIS, FRANCE, October 24, 2022 – Boostrs, a Paris-headquartered European leader in mapping and matching employee skills in order to deliver HCM solutions, has announced the acquisition of its assets by Visier, the Canada-headquartered globally recognised leader in people analytics with 25,000 customers worldwide. Venero Capital Advisors acted as exclusive financial advisor to Boostrs.

LOS ANGELES, LONDON and ZURICH, October 11, 2022 – Marlin Equity Partners has acquired People-Analytix AG, an AI-based employee skills management platform. Headquartered in Switzerland, the company’s skills management platform includes a proprietary multilingual skills ontology with over 20,000 unique skills, enabling companies to identify organizational skills gaps, uncover workforce trends and match employees to jobs, projects and learning. People-Analytix will be merged with Learning Pool, an existing Marlin portfolio company. Venero Capital Advisors acted as financial advisor to People Analytix. 

Singapore, Oct. 11, 2022 — Workmate, Singapore’s fastest-growing on-demand staffing platform for the frontline workforce, has been acquired by PERSOL, one of the largest HR service providers in the Asia Pacific region. The combination of Workmate and PERSOL will accelerate the advancement of Workmate’s on-demand manpower solutions across the Asia Pacific. Venero Capital Advisors acted as exclusive financial advisor to Workmate.

Antwerp, Belgium and Oslo, Norway, 7 October 2022 – Visma, one of European leaders in cloud software, has acquired Beeple, a fast-growing Belgian tech scale-up that offers planning and communication solutions for organisations with flexible workers. Venero acted as exclusive financial advisor to Beeple. 

Beeple was founded by Karel Rabaut and Nathan Samson in 2016. Today, the company is a central platform connecting everything around HR and providing a direct line between staffing agencies, clients and temporary workers. 

Following a very strong recovery in 2021 and an initial softening in 1H 2022, the HR Tech and broader Work Tech businesses are adjusting to a new normal. This involves lower growth expectations for 2023 and emphasis on cashflow & profitability. In this context, Q3 shaped up as follows:

• M&A activity began to soften, reflecting the abrupt divergence of valuation expectations that occurred in H1. However, acquirers remain active and sellers coming to market can expect to receive a greater share of the buyers’ attention
  
• Valuations contracted at the top end, but remained unchanged for businesses already valued less aggressively
• Venture investment saw a significant pullback, particularly for later-stage transactions; Investors are taking a more cautious view when assessing opportunities; valuations are coming off of the most excessive levels and rounds take longer to close

Following a very strong recovery in 2021 and an initial softening in 1Q 2022, the HR Tech and broader Work Tech sectors are beginning to feel the impact of high inflation and uncertain macroeconomic outlook. In this context, the second quarter closed with mixed results:

• M&A activity held up; Valuations contracted on the high end, but remained unchanged for businesses already valued more modestly; Buyers remain active and corporates exhibit greater conviction in the face of uncertainty than financial acquirers
• Venture investment saw a significant pullback, particularly for later-stage transactions; Investors are taking a more cautious view when assessing opportunities; valuations are coming off of the most excessive levels and rounds take longer to close

​Both in M&A and venture, there are two types of buyers / investors: those who take a “risk-off” approach across the board, and those who are more nuanced when assessing opportunities. Valuation expectations between companies and buyers / investors diverged somewhat abruptly, particularly for businesses that have yet to feel any adverse impact to their operations. However, we are still at the beginning of what is likely to be a protracted battle against recessionary forces.

​We expect that the current sentiment dichotomy will be reflected more comprehensively in the figures of Q3 and Q4, before the level of impact on businesses gradually becomes clearer and viewpoints start to reconverge.

Venero Capital Advisors is pleased to support as headline sponsor the TIARA 2022 Talent Tech Star Awards.

Congratulations to EightFold.ai for being crowned the Venero Capital Advisors Talent Tech Champion of Champions!

Judges praised Eightfold for a genuinely innovative solution that is championing the move to skills-led recruitment at scale and proving its success as the model for its own business as the Best Talent Tech Company to Work For.

Georgios Markakis, Managing Partner at Venero, commented: "Venero is a proud sponsor of this award, which showcases a Talent Tech Star whose solution exemplifies innovation, while also delivering particularly far-reaching value and impact.

Each and every one of this year’s winners are championing transformation and innovation in HR and Recruitment. However, this year’s Champion of Champions addresses a crucially important challenge, in many ways a paradigm shift in the way companies around the world attract and retain talent, and does so with cutting-edge innovation, client service and leadership."

Well done to all the finalists and winners! 

Paris, 10 May 2022 - Venero intensifies its focus on the French market with the appointment of HR Tech veteran Marc Garrido as Head of French Coverage.

Marc has over 35 years of professional experience in the HRIS industry, where he has held positions at organisations including ADP, IBM and HR access Solutions (Fidelity Investment). His entrepreneurial experience includes acquiring ICRH Group, growing it by 3x and subsequently selling it to HR Path. For a period of 7 years he has supported HR Path with fundraising, acquisitions and integrations, organic growth, organisational transformations, strategic partnerships and international development. He remains a strategic advisor to both early stage and established players of the HRIS industry in France and in Europe.

Barcelona, 26 April 2022 - Leading Spanish time & attendance software provider Woffu has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Visma. Venero Capital Advisors acted as exclusive financial adviser to Woffu.

Barcelona-based Woffu was founded in 2015 by Miguel Fresneda and Víctor Pérez. It has 55 employees and nearly 1,500 clients. 130,000 employees daily use Woffu's solution to optimize their time, request vacations, manage absences and comply with time control regulations.

​Visma is a leading provider of mission-critical business software, with 14,000 employees and 1.2 million private and public sector customers across the Nordics, Benelux, Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America. Woffu is Visma's third acquisition in Spain.