FUNKE’s Job Group takes over social recruiting start-up everbay

Essen/ Munich — Expan­sion of AI exper­tise: FUNKE Medi­en­gruppe is further expan­ding its invol­vement in the regio­nal job board market and acqui­ring the Munich-based recrui­ting start-up ever­bay. With the take­over, the Munich-based company’s team of around ten people will move to FUNKE, and the three foun­ders will also remain on board as mana­ging direc­tors. The company will conti­nue to operate inde­pendently on the market as a brand. 

Foun­ded a good four years ago as a purely social recrui­ting company, ever­bay now supports recruit­ment with AI-based tools: Anna, the start-up’s AI assistant, can cont­act appli­cants in compli­ance with GDPR, conduct inter­views, record data, provide infor­ma­tion on job profiles or coor­di­nate appoint­ments between candi­da­tes and recruiters.

“Our aim is to take the pres­sure off HR mana­gers in their day-to-day work,” says CTO Peter Kirch­ner. “They should be able to concen­trate on what really matters: hiring the right people. We take care of the rest.” 

With the complete acqui­si­tion of the start-up, FUNKE Medi­en­gruppe is further expan­ding its exper­tise in the HR tech sector. The acqui­si­tion is part of the stra­tegy to offer an ecosys­tem of recrui­ting services that provi­des corpo­rate clients with effi­ci­ent solu­ti­ons — from candi­date search and scree­ning to hiring. Pelka, CEO of the newly formed group and driving force behind the acqui­si­tion: “I am very plea­sed that we have been able to win over the foun­ders and team of ever­bay for our plans. ever­bay will help us get closer to our goal of a holi­stic, Germany-wide HR offe­ring for corpo­rate clients.” 

The FUNKE team was won over by ever­bay’s unique tech­ni­cal basis: the AI tech­no­logy deve­lo­ped in-house analy­zes the effec­ti­ve­ness of ongo­ing social campaigns in real time and auto­ma­ti­cally makes opti­mal budget decis­i­ons for further play­out. The ideal chan­nel mix from natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal plat­forms — inclu­ding Meta, Google, part­ner networks and many more — is dyna­mi­cally selec­ted and conti­nuously adjus­ted. This ensu­res maxi­mum reach and effi­ci­ency when approa­ching candidates. 

“We were convin­ced by FUNKE’s vision,” says Matthias Oden, ever­bay COO. “Recrui­ting must not consist of isola­ted solu­ti­ons if you want to be successful as an employer in the battle for talent these days. The fact that we are now part of an over­ar­ching complete offe­ring is exactly what we wanted for everbay.” 

“We are deligh­ted that we can now offer our custo­mers an even higher-perfor­­mance recruit­ment service thanks to the oppor­tu­ni­ties we have within the FUNKE Group,” says ever­bay CSO Martin Plöckl. “We will also be able to drive forward the further deve­lo­p­ment of our product range more quickly.” 

The acqui­si­tion will be comple­ted retroac­tively to the begin­ning of the year. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. With the take­over, the Munich-based company’s team of around ten people will move to FUNKE, and the three foun­ders will also remain on board as mana­ging direc­tors. The company will conti­nue to operate inde­pendently on the market as a brand. 

www.funkemedien.de