Bullhorn, a global provider of recruiting software for search firms, recently announced the completion of $26 million in new financing, led by venture capital firms Highland Capital Partners and General Catalyst Partners.
The investment comes after Bullhorn achieved a 400 percent revenue growth rate during the past 3-year period. Bullhorn CEO and co-founder Art Papas discussed why the achievement was so important for Bullhorn, especially in their market space.
“With regards to the funding, I think it might be a record for the staffing and recruiting space,” Papas said. “I don’t know of any other company in our space that’s created this much capital, even inflation-adjusted, so it should have a real impact.
“Most of the capital investment will go towards developing and enhancing products and taking the products internationally, which will require new salespeople. Bullhorn will be recruiting very aggressively over the next 18 months, so the bulk of money will go towards people.”
Bullhorn began over 9 years ago during the dot-com era as an investment for venture capitalists. After a few shaky years, the company gained its footing in the marketplace and began to pick up steam mainly through referral-based business.
Papas said that a large part of their continued success can be attributed to a forum for their clients called Bullhorn Brainstorm, where users can make enhancement suggestions about the product which are then evaluated and voted on by other Bullhorn clients. Suggestions that receive the most votes are passed to a product manager for evaluation, enabling Bullhorn to quickly improve upon functionality and also remain in constant communication with users.
When asked if Bullhorn’s competition is also tapping into Web 2.0 capabilities, Papas said he was fairly certain that competitors are not utilizing new tools.
“I don’t think our competition knows what the Internet is yet,” Papas said. “They think it’s for buying books and selling your used stuff.”
In addition to bringing on new staff, Papas said Bullhorn will also be aggressively broadening their client base within the global market. Current targets are Australia and the United Kingdom, whose companies rarely employ in-house recruiters and typically rely on staffing agencies to fill vacancies.
“Much to the chagrin of our competitors, we will also be doubling our marketing budget to gain a larger footprint overseas, Papas said. “We have a goal of being the go-to recruiting software for search firms all over the world.”
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Tags: investment funds, Recruiting, recruiting software, search firms