Recruitment Entrepreneur Sells Shares of Elite Cyber to Eurocom Group
November 9, 2023 – Recruitment Entrepreneur, a private equity firm specializing in the startup and scale of recruitment businesses, has announced the sale of their shares in a global cybersecurity recruitment services company Elite Cyber (EC) to Eurocom Group, a Luxembourg-based investor. This will add to Eurocom Group’s already portfolio of investments within Luxembourg, France, Belgium and Switzerland. Recruitment Entrepreneur invested in EC in 2016, with the business already having built a strong reputation in France. With this investment and partnership, EC has grown in the U.K., Europe, and the U.S. and established a team that specializes in sourcing top talent on a global scale.
“Being welcomed into the Recruitment Entrepreneur portfolio fast-tracked our growth and the partnership enabled the business to navigate and overcome significant challenges and milestones,” said Laurent Halimi, founder and CEO of EC. “Their invaluable support helped deliver an incredible six years of continuous growth, collaboration, and innovation, where we positioned ourselves as a leading presence in the cybersecurity industry. We’re thankful Recruitment Entrepreneur has helped facilitate our success and now stand fully equipped to continue the growth of EC”.
“We’re excited to share such a positive achievement,” said Greg Hollis, CEO of Recruitment Entrepreneur. “Since partnering with Laurent there’s always been a clear vision and focus for them to become one of the most successful firms in their sector. His unwavering drive and focus have prepared him to lead his team as a self-sustaining entity. Laurent has always had an entrepreneurial drive which was evidenced when winning Entrepreneur of the Year award at the Recruitment Entrepreneur Excellence Awards in 2021. After leveraging our expertise and mentorship there’s no better time for Elite Cyber to take the next step for their future growth”.
“The past six years have been very rewarding for everyone, and as they embark on their next chapter, we’re proud to have been part of their story and we extend our warmest wishes for continued success and prosperity to Laurent and his team,” Mr. Hollis said. “This exciting announcement is the latest example of Recruitment Entrepreneur growing and exiting a successful business and helps secure our track record as the leading investor in the recruitment sector.”
The Outsized Role That PE, VC And Tech Play In Executive Recruiting
In their latest Executive Search Report, Thrive noted that following a precipitous drop in executive hiring to close out 2022, the market seems to have found stability. Opened searches increased nearly 12.5 percent in Q1, the largest quarterly uptick Thrive said it has seen in its dataset in almost two years. Closed searches also increased, similarly posting its largest quarterly rise since Q4 2021. Still, demand for talent has been uneven for at least a year, according to an analysis by Hunt Scanlon Media, and it has been notably cooling in Q2. Search firms are considering all sorts of strategic steps to keep growth going from entering new niche verticals and expanding into adjacencies that align with their offerings, to acquiring rivals, and establishing global footprints.
The PE, VC, and tech sectors have played an outsized role in the expansion of the search industry for much of the last decade. That makes this all the more interesting to note from Thrive: “While the PE market looks to be a bright spot [for recruiters], it appears to be creating that shine in a more concentrated fashion.” On the VC side market conditions have slowed to a crawl. In March, CB Insights reported that the median time between funding rounds lengthened by at least five months for each round since the beginning of 2021. Thrive’s analysis reveals that the slowdown in VC led to falling search volume. This news comes with a silver lining however, as it was the least precipitous quarterly drop since the market reached its peak in late 2021 and early 2022. It appears the downward momentum in VC search is beginning to slow.
Elite Cyber has specialized in the recruitment of cyber security professionals since 2015. The firm’s practice covers, information security, cybersecurity, IT security, technology risk, and information risk. Elite Cyber has experience in recruiting on a permanent and contract basis for internal positions in global organizations, SME and startups as well as consultancy and systems integration businesses, and cyber & information security vendors.
New Recruitment Platform Coming
Early next year, Elite Cyber will launch Cyberr.ai, a recruitment platform that uses AI, and raise new funds from investors in the marketplace to accelerate its growth. “The launch is scheduled for January,” said Mr. Halimi. “This initiative aims to become the global benchmark for careers in cybersecurity, offering companies rapid and cost-effective recruitment of highly qualified talent with remarkable accuracy.”
Related: Why Agility is the Key to Success Today
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor; Lily Fauver, Senior Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
