Job Today, a Luxembourg-based recruitment marketplace backed by UK broadcaster Channel 4, has sealed a media-for-equity deal valued at $35m with three European media investors, TechCrunch has reported.
The companies in question are broadcasters Astremedia and RTL Germany, which holds a minority stake in Spain-based Astremedia, and German Media Pool, the advertising-for-equity fund backed by media groups Regiocast, RTL II and Wall/JCDecaux.
Job Today operates an online recruitment platform that connects employers in the retail, hospitality and beauty industries with applicants in the UK or Spain within a 24 hour period.
Polina Montano, Job Today’s co-founder and chief operating officer, told TechCrunch the company expects to launch in Germany later this year.
“The media players are giving us broadcasting inventory with a gross value of $35m — in exchange for which they get equity stake in the company,” Montano said.
“There are different channels, it does not have to be TV only, it can be other channels such as outdoor advertising, billboards, radio — but mostly it is TV.”
Astremedia, German Media Pool and Channel 4 took part in Job Today’s $20m series B round in November 2016, along with venture capital firms Accel, Mangrove Capital and Felix Capital, and Flint Capital, the VC fund that led the round.
Mangrove Capital, Accel and Felix Capital had already provided $10m for the company in a January 2016 series A round.
RTL Group holds stakes in TV channels and radio stations in European countries including France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Spain, Hungary and Croatia, as well as in Southeast Asia, so there is potential to enter new markets in future, Job Today said.
The company’s platform has secured some 150,000 businesses and 2 million candidates since its May 2015 launch, and processes about a million applications each week.