Riviera Partners Secures $25 Million in Private Equity Funding

June 5, 2019 – Private equity concerns continue to pour money into executive search firms as demand for senior-level talent remains strong. Riviera Partners, a recruitment provider specializing in C-level engineering, product and design leader placements, has closed a minority investment of $25 million led by private equity firms Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors and ROCA Partners.

The financing will be used to fund Riviera Partners’ continued geographic expansion, strategic acquisitions, enhancements to its “Sutro” proprietary recruiting platform and the addition of staff to meet the increased demand for its services. Riviera grew its revenues by nearly 48 percent this past year, to $31 million, and is now ranked No. 18 by Hunt Scanlon Media on its Top 50 list.

“Technological advancement is the most important driver of company growth and value creation,” said CEO Will Hunsinger.  “Riviera places technology leaders that power this transformation for companies of all sizes, enabling them to deliver products and services that serve customers better than ever before.”

“We have the most experienced, data-driven recruiting team in the industry, a powerful platform that speeds the process, and the best candidate relationships,” he said. “Our partners choose Riviera because of our proven track record, and they are confident that by working with us, they’ll make a great hire.”

“We target high growth companies that bring game changing software, processes and analytics to industries that are often behind the technology curve,” said Nishita Cummings, partner at Kayne Partners Fund. “In the same way that advanced analytics changed the game of baseball, we believe that Riviera’s proprietary technology and processes are changing the way executive recruiting is done. We are thrilled to become an integral part of helping them grow during this exciting time.”

In addition to its headquarters in San Francisco, the firm is rapidly expanding in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle and Bozeman, MT. It now has over 90 team members across the nation, and regularly works with the tech industry’s most accomplished venture capital, private equity and growth equity firms as well as CEOs of growing companies.


ZRG Partners Taps New Funding, Eyes Further Growth

ZRG Partners announced the completion of a recapitalization with RFE Investment Partners, a lower middle-market private equity firm with a long history of investing in growth companies. Rochelle Park, NJ-based ZRG’s current capital partner, Northcreek Mezzanine, is exiting the investment after four years. During this period, ZRG experienced a compound annual growth rate exceeding 38 percent and nearly doubled its number of offices from 13 to 22 around the world.

“We are excited about the next chapters of growth for ZRG as we continue our ascent to becoming an even more significant player in the global executive search market and broadening our offering to other areas of human capital services,” said ZRG CEO Larry Hartmann. “Our data-driven approach to human capital and our commitment to delivering seamless services around the globe with our highly collaborative team have been pillars in our growth strategy.”


“We are excited to partner with the Riviera team given their collaborative, results-oriented culture and commitment to providing best-in-class service to their clients,” said Ravi Sarin of ROCA partners. “With this growth investment, Riviera can continue to enhance its technology platform, which enables its recruiters to deliver superior service and outcomes for its clients.”

Partnered with Venture-Backed Concerns

Riviera Partners is a global recruiting firm specializing in the technology industry. The firm provides clients with optimal placements by combining recruiter interactions and experience with data-driven findings about candidates. The firm has recruited for key executive roles at Pinterest, Postmates, Tinder, Twilio, Uber, Asana, Dropbox, GitHub, DoorDash, Hulu, and partnered with venture-backed concerns, including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, Benchmark, Accel, Menlo Ventures, KPCB, Greylock and General Catalyst.

Through sophisticated, machine learning algorithms, Riviera Partners identifies specialized, highly-qualified candidates that fit an organization’s needs from 600,000 professionals in the most important tech geographies. Riviera can often provide a short list of exceptional candidates in 30 days and has a track record of over 95 percent success rate.

Related: Private Equity Firms Invest in Human Cloud Platform Jyve

Last year, Riviera Partners named Mr. Hunsinger as its CEO. He has been part of the Riviera team for two years, serving as chief operating officer before his promotion. During that time, he has helped drive significant expansion of Riviera’s executive search practice as well as launching R[2] (R Squared), Riviera’s marketplace for software engineering talent that combines data science, machine learning and recruiter curation to match talent.

“Riviera Partners has experienced significant growth over the past two years,” said Michael Morell, co-founder and managing partner of Riviera Partners. “Will’s leadership and operational expertise will allow us to capitalize on this momentum, continue scaling our business and ensure our recruiting professionals have the support and freedom to focus on exceptional service delivery to our clients.”

“Technology, data science and machine learning have the potential to transform recruiting and deliver an exponentially better experience for our clients and candidates,” said Ali Behnam, co-founder and managing partner of Riviera Partners. “Will’s vision for how to unlock that potential and his experience growing companies is exactly what we need to take Riviera’s talent platform to the next level.”

Recent Acquisition

Earlier this year, Riviera Partners acquired New York-based technology-focused executive search firm Bamboo Talent. Financial details of that deal went undisclosed at the time.


Private Equity Recruiting: The Widening War for Leadership

This latest research report from Hunt Scanlon Media examines the growing talent dilemma unfolding at private equity firms – and offers an array of solutions to win the widening war for leadership. According to Hunt Scanlon, the PE sector can expect to see an expanding bidding war for top talent over the next decade. Driving the trend: persistent global talent shortages across the C-suite in most industries and functions, including finance, healthcare and biotech, digital and technology.

Linking talent to value is this report’s overriding theme. Hunt Scanlon has surveyed private equity leaders and their chief talent officers as well as leading executive recruiters specializing in the sector. Their expert commentary and advice is contained in this year’s report. Click here to read more!


Riviera Partners said that its proprietary recruiting platform combined with Bamboo Talent’s vertical specialization and market-specific expertise will allow the combined entity to better serve a national client roster of innovative companies.

Related: Booming Private Equity Sector Feeds TritonExec’s Expansion to the U.S.

“Hiring the right technology leadership is increasingly difficult as demand grows for key individuals that can create value within organizations,” said Mr. Hunsinger. “This is particularly true in New York where some of the top technology organizations are expanding operations, traditional industries are pursuing digital transformation, and venture capital investment has seen unprecedented growth.”

Founded in 2014, Bamboo Talent is recognized for building lasting relationships with candidates, companies and venture capital partners. The team at Bamboo has partnered with companies from their earliest funding rounds through every stage of growth. The firm has a broad network of relationships with seasoned engineering talent, CEOs, CTOs, founders, venture capitalists and talent partners.

“Everything that Riviera Partners does is focused on long-term relationships and client results, which is core to our sustainable recruitment ethos,” said Will Potter, co-founder of Bamboo Talent. “Riviera’s impressive track-record and deep insights will accelerate our ability to offer better experiences and results to both clients and candidates in the New York City market, while still living our values.”

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor; and Andrew W. Mitchell, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media

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