May M&A Activity Picks Up. Deals include: Staffing, AI tools, Talent Platforms, and Upskilling

Here are 8 deals announced from earlier this month. Randstad Digital, BCForeward, and Reed Global are the notable strategic acquirers. There are also several PE firms investing big dollars into workforce solutions.

May 13th-17th Deals

Kyloe Partners acquires candidate conversational AI product Squire - HR Tech.
Squire will be rebranded to Kyloe NoteTaker. This new conversational AI product helps recruiters engage with candidates and process candidate data. It will be an add-on for Kyloe to sell to their clients to make their Bullhorn experience even better.

FalconPoint Partners invests $250M in Jennmar - Industrial & Engineering.
An interesting pairing, FalconPoint's other two active portco's are tech / AI focused companies while Jennmar is a 100 year old industrial product manufacturer and engineering recruitment firm. FalconPoint's investment will support global expansion. 

Summit Professional Education acquired by Avathon Capital - Continuing Professional Education.
Avathon is a lower middle market PE firm that targets education and workforce platforms. Summit is their 14th platform and a direct hit given their online and inperson courses for healthcare professionals makes for a natural platform to invest in. 

Randstad Digital Acquires Torc, an AI-powered Digital Talent Marketplace - IT Talent Platform.
Randstad Digital likely scoops up Torc for cheap while increasing the size of their global digital talent pool. Torc was founded in 2021, raised $5M and has now exited (sounds familiar). Now Randstad Digital may place offshore and nearshore technical talent via Torc's talent network and can build technical teams to execute their solutions work using this expanded talent network. 

Lofton acquires fellow Lousiana staffing firm Frazee Recruiting - IT and F&A Staffing.
Lofton completes a tuck-in of a regional firm to expand it's footprint in Louisiana. Both firms have been friendly and this deal marks a natural progression of how these regional staffing firms may consolidate over time.

TSR acquired by BCForeward - IT Staffing.
Acquiring publicly traded TSR for a $29M valuation will give BCForeward a great revenue boost (2023 revenue of $100M), plenty of IT staffing assets, and the job of figuring out how to squeeze more profitability out of the struggling IT staffing provider.

SMITH + HOWARD makes third acquisition in 12 months - Exec Search.
Smith + Howard is expanding their audit, tax advisory, and accounting service groups by adding a F&A focused exec search and staffing provider. VIP Search Group will likely remain in tact and act as Smith+Howard's next division.

Reed Global acquires Code Nation to tackle tech skills gap - IT Up-skilling.
Reed offers a "total tech talent solution" which goes beyond just finding and placing tech talent. By acquiring Code Nation, Reed now offers clients a deeper way to engage with their services to help train and up-skill the talent Reed places.

Did you hear about any other deals we may have missed? If so, please reply with details. LongBoard will review and add our commentary in next week’s M&A brief!

ALSO, if you ever want your company name to appear in one of these headlines, The LongBoard Group would love to help!

More deals to come.

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