Talent.com announced a US$120-million funding round as the Montreal-based platform expands its technology to capture more of the hiring process amid surging demand for workers. Here’s what you need to know:

The company: Talent.com aggregates postings from the application tracking systems of large firms onto its job board, then sells employers ads on a pay-per-click basis. The firm brought in $125 million in revenue last year, and has historically been profitable, co-CEO Lucas Martinez said in an interview. “We saw this opportunity to become a big player in [the] industry.” 

The platform focuses on gig, healthcare, hospitality, retail, skilled-trade and temporary workers. In the first three months of the pandemic, job postings dropped, Martinez said. But then “we started to feel a lot of demand from a specific set of clients—the retailers [and] healthcare clients were outbidding and outspending everyone else.” 

The firm’s investors see opportunity in the tight labour market, which is upping the stakes of every placement—employers need to hire people who will stay, while candidates want to make sure they’re picking the right place. “Talent, be it in tech or any of the traditional industries, is now the biggest challenge for companies,” said Chris Arsenault, partner at Montreal-headquartered Inovia Capital, which led the round.

Talent.com aims to “become Pepsi to Coke’s Indeed,” Martinez said, noting that hiring is “not a one-player-takes-it-all market” and that “there is a very strong incentive for employers to actually diversify their recruitment spend” since prospective candidates tend to check multiple job boards.  

The money: Despite external interest, Inovia decided to “take the whole round and bring in our LPs, instead of yet another American fund,” said Arsenault. Existing Talent.com investor Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec participated in the US$120-million Series B equity portion, as did provincial fund Investissement Québec, BDC Capital, Boston-based HarbourVest Partners, and Geneva’s Climb Ventures. The company also secured a US$30-million debt facility from BMO Financial Group. Other than Climb, all are investors in Inovia’s funds. 

Talent.com, then called Nuevoo, raised $53 million from CDPQ in September 2019; Martinez said the round was “mostly secondary,” buying out angel investors.

The plan: The hiring technology market “hasn’t seen any innovation since the early 2000s” when LinkedIn launched, said Arsenault. Talent.com has “been successful on the enterprise and small-business front,” he said. Now, the firm is “really focused on being the resource for a job seeker” facing “a tidal wave of job openings, [where] every job looks the same.”

The platform currently directs job seekers to companies’ career sites. “Our goal will be to own the application process, then own the hiring process, and ultimately own the payroll process,” said Martinez. It will start with features like a resume database and company profile pages. Talent.com currently shows average salary information for roles based on location. It plans to use the data generated from 500,000 monthly placements to give job seekers more such insights. 

Talent.com currently features postings for jobs in 78 countries. North America is its largest market followed by Europe, Africa and the Middle East, and Martinez cited Latin America and Southeast Asia as expansion areas. The company itself also wants to add staff to its 400-person workforce.