Bullhorn Makes Third Acquisition this Year with the Addition of KonaSearch

September 9, 2024 – Recruiting software provider Bullhorn has acquired KonaSearch, a BasisTech portfolio company that offers match and discovery solutions for staffing, recruiting, and executive search businesses on the Salesforce platform. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Executive search firms need access to deep, comprehensive historical data on job histories and career achievements,” Bullhorn said. “KonaSearch’s powerful cross-entity search solution uncovers and matches against this kind of data specifically for the Salesforce platform. Acquiring KonaSearch provides us with expertise and technology to support faster, higher-quality executive placements for our customers on the Salesforce platform.”

“Through partnerships with 10,000 customers globally, including nearly 1,000 clients on the Salesforce platform, Bullhorn is a global top 10 Salesforce ISV partner and the largest Salesforce partner for the recruitment industry,” the company said. “Bullhorn has built a vast knowledge base of recruitment best practices and deep domain expertise to help firms scale their businesses. This acquisition is Bullhorn’s latest investment to help accelerate our sourcing AI strategy and underscores Bullhorn’s strong commitment to both the Salesforce platform and the executive search market.”

BasisTech G.K. will continue to provide sales and support services for Kona in Japan on behalf of Bullhorn. The BasisTech team in Tokyo remains totally committed to the success of its customers, and to its partnership with Salesforce Japan.

“We are excited that Bullhorn has acquired KonaSearch,”  said Carl Hoffman, CEO of BasisTech, “Andrew McKay and the entire Kona team have done an outstanding job building AI-powered search for Salesforce. They have engineered an elegant and highly performant solution to the challenges posed by complex data sets at extreme scale. We look forward to working with Bullhorn to continue growing Kona’s market share in Japan.”

In June, Bullhorn acquired Textkernel, providers of sourcing AI solutions. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. “Sourcing AI is a huge investment area for Bullhorn, and we are truly excited to embark on this journey with Textkernel,” said Matt Fischer, president and chief operating officer of Bullhorn. “We congratulate CEO Gerard Mulder, COO Guus Meijer and the entire leadership team at Textkernel and welcome the Textkernel team to the Bullhorn family. This acquisition is a significant step forward for us, and we are committed to maximizing its potential to benefit our customers.”

Headquartered in Amsterdam, Textkernel powers over 2,000 customers globally. “A longtime, trusted partner to the staffing and recruitment industry, Textkernel and Bullhorn share a crucial strategic goal: empowering recruiters to digitally transform their business for the future and maximize the use of AI in the industry,” Bullhorn said. “This acquisition accelerates our AI strategy and furthers our mission of powering organizations to put the world to work.”

Earlier this year, Bullhorn acquired Mployee, a Netherlands-based provider of Salesforce-based solutions for recruitment agencies. Mployee’s technology will accelerate Bullhorn’s vision to deliver a full, end-to-end, enterprise solution for Bullhorn customers using the Salesforce platform. “We’ve seen tremendous growth in customers using Bullhorn for Salesforce globally in recent years, and this acquisition will help us better support those agencies throughout the world in delivering more efficient middle-office operations,” said Mr. Fischer. “We’re excited at the potential of combining Mployee’s offerings with Bullhorn for Salesforce to deliver a full, end-to-end solution.”

“By combining Mployee’s middle-office capabilities with Bullhorn’s front-office, Bullhorn can offer a true enterprise-grade, end-to-end solution built on the Salesforce platform,” the company said. “This solution will help solve a myriad of front- and middle-office challenges inhibiting agencies’ growth and differentiation.”

Recent Investment

Bullhorn Ventures has made a strategic investment in Boulder, CO-based Staffing Engine. The investment aims to accelerate the adoption of the next generation of conversational and generative AI within Bullhorn’s customer base, transforming the recruiting experience, and heralding a new era of efficiency and innovation. “We are incredibly excited for our customers to have access to Staffing Engine’s suite of AI acceleration tools,” said Jason Heilman, senior vice president, product – automation and AI at Bullhorn. “Their ability to deeply configure tools to meet even the most creative or complex use cases will create real differentiation for our customers.”

Related: Bullhorn Names Senior Leadership Appointments

“What staffing executives need to understand about AI is that, while it will contribute to growth over time, right now it’s about significantly improving your gross margin,” said Ted Guggenheim, co-founder and CEO at Staffing Engine. “That’s a huge deal in this environment.”

Bullhorn Acquires London-Based Search Firm
Bullhorn has acquired SourceBreaker, a London-based Al-driven search-and-match platform. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Bullhorn said that the acquisition will further enhance Bullhorn’s portfolio of solutions for talent engagement across the entire candidate lifecycle, from sourcing to engagement, onboarding, and redeployment. “We believe the addition of SourceBreaker’s solutions to our portfolio will help staffing firms meet this challenge head-on by increasing recruiters’ productivity and ultimately boosting their fill rates,” said Matt Fischer, president and COO of Bullhorn. “As a successful Marketplace partner, SourceBreaker already serves hundreds of Bullhorn customers, and we look forward to bringing their solutions to even more of our customers.”

“We created SourceBreaker to change the way recruiters search,” said Steve Beckitt, founder and CEO of SourceBreaker. “Now more than ever, our products can help expand the pool of talent and identify better matches between candidates and jobs. We’re incredibly excited to expand our reach by joining forces with Bullhorn, and we’re all looking forward to joining the team.”

Staffing Engine, a provider of AI-powered recruiting solutions, has fully integrated its Recruiting Acceleration AI with Bullhorn, and its partner ecosystem. Staffing Engine’s platforms allows recruiting firms to increase productivity, operate 24/7, and accelerate growth, the company said. The Engine AI suite of products allows staffing firms to leverage the next generation of AI to make their recruiters and sales reps more productive, increase lead conversion, and create an on-demand experience for their candidates and clients.

Bullhorn Ventures invests in early stage software companies with the potential to deliver unique value to third party staffing and recruiting firms. The firm backs teams who are building differentiated products in our market, and who share in the mission to help staffing firms digitize, automate, and empower. Over the past few years, Bullhorn has acquired over a dozen software companies that provide solutions to the staffing and recruitment industry.

Related: Bullhorn Launches New Service to Support Recruiting Firms

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief and Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor  – Hunt Scanlon Media