Randstad Innovation Fund, the corporate venturing unit recently announced by Netherlands-based work and human resources company Randstad, is planning to invest about €10m in startups in 2014 and aims to participate chiefly as a strategic investor, according to Ilonka Jankovich, who is co-managing the fund.
“We will be doing at least around €10m ($13.7m) this year,” Jankovich told Global Corporate Venturing, adding that the fund would commit “between €500,000 ($685,000) and €5m” to each investment.
Randstad, one of the biggest suppliers of staff in the world, has about 28,000 employees spread across 39 countries. It will seek to fund companies operating in growing areas that cross over into HR, such as social sourcing, online, mobile and virtual platforms and services, gamification and data analytics.
The fund will not act as a seed investor, but will look to enter companies at the series A, B or C stage as a strategic backer. Its aim is to help develop technologies that can help HR organisations like Randstad operate more efficiently.
“Randstad will be financing all of it, there will not be any external partners or investors,” Jankovich said. “The main goal is to give strategic opportunities. It’s very important that we share know-how with the companies, and that they can also flourish by entering into corporations if possible, but of course completely at arm’s length from the Randstad Group.”
Randstad Innovation Fund’s first investment, announced in late March, is in Gigwalk, a US-based software platform that uses a mobile workforce of ‘Gigwalkers’ to help retailers and brands coordinate sales strategies to hopefully boost revenues, and the startup is typical of the kind of innovative approaches to work and staffing that appeal to Randstad.
“Gigwalk uses certain technology to source people via mobile crowdsourcing, which is something which is interesting for us, as is the idea that you can combine the sourcing of the workforce with an enterprise platform so you can also offer a specific service to companies,” Jankovich explained. “That made it really interesting.”
The fund aims to build up a portfolio of small investments in the upcoming years, taking minority stakes alongside other investors. It is accepting applications from both startups and other investors, and intends to make several more deals as the year progresses.
“We will be making announcements, if everything goes well, in the coming few months,” Jankovich stated. “We have a great pipeline of interesting opportunities.”