Ilonka Jankovich and Paul Jacquin have been co-managing the Randstad Innovation Fund, the corporate venturing arm of the eponymous staffing firm, since its inception in 2014.
With a background in corporate law, Ilonka Jankovich founded two recruitment firms that she subsequently sold to Monster in 2001, and to Randstad in 2012. Following the acquisition by Randstad, discussions led a to partnership that would see Jankovich found and manage a corporate venture arm funded by Randstad.
Paul Jacquin, who was head of business corporate development for Randstad at the time, had several years of experience in technology M&A and venture capital. He had closed many deals across several continents and was tightly involved in Randstad corporate development. He was chosen as partner to co-fund and co-manage the Randstad Innovation Fund.
Since its inception and with €50m in earmarked capital, the Randstad Innovation Fund has made 17 investments across six countries in the US and Europe, primarily in talent acquisition and workforce management startups. As the investments are early-stage, the strategic value to the startups comes from a deep understanding of the market and the ability to test large-scale deployments in a global staffing firm, they said.
Its deals so far this year have included Gr8 People’s $8m round, US-based skills assessment technology provider HackerRank securing $30m in a series C round and $14m for US-based automated recruitment software developer AllyO’s round.
The fund has also been paramount in conducting research focusing on trends in HR technology and in helping Randstad realign its digital strategy to be considered more innovative than competition, they added. The early-stage nature of the investments implies a longer investment horizon, yet some early success includes a global partnership with Checkster to supply reference checks for Randstad as well as the acquisition and integration of Twago by the Randstad Group. Global partnerships were also put in place for Montage and Shiftboard.