Factorial buys a German AI talent management start-up
The acquisition will allow to provide more services to the platform and capture large clients from the Central European country
BarcelonaThe Catalan business management and human resources software platform Factorial has acquired the German startup Empion, which specializes in the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to talent and human resources management, as part of the Catalan company's international expansion into Germany.
The purchase of Empion, based in Berlin and founded in 2021, is another step in Factorial's progress in the Central European country, which the company considers its main international growth market, according to a statement.
The German startup will facilitate the launch by Factorial of talent assessments, a new product that uses artificial intelligence for personnel selection for all the Catalan company's clients. Factorial has stated that this operation responds to a gap in the human resources software market, as such solutions are usually offered through third parties rather than being natively integrated. Instead, with Empion, this task can be integrated in a unified way within Factorial's own platform.
Through this operation, Factorial expects to add several million dollars in annual recurring revenue (ARR) to its business, after it closed a $150 million funding round a few months ago (about 128.8 million euros) with which it reached a valuation of 2.5 billion dollars (about 2.2 billion euros).
When it closed that round, Factorial already said it would use it to support the development of the new artificial intelligence capabilities offered by its platform, and also to fund the acquisitions of other companies in its core, mostly European, markets. Unlike other start-ups and scale-ups that need to raise new capital to ensure survival, Factorial claims to have "almost unlimited margin" in the bank.
Major clients
The company's chief executive officer, Jordi Romero, stated in the press release that the acquisition will allow Factorial to work with large companies with which Empion already does business, such as Deutsche Telekom, Procter & Gamble, Siemens Mobility, Raiffeisenbanken, and HUK-COBURG. "It is also a clear sign of our ambition to become a reference for AI in Europe," added Romero.
Empion's founder, Annika von Mutius, will join Factorial's management team in Germany. Founded in 2016 in Barcelona, Factorial offers an AI-based operations platform that helps more than 16,000 companies in over 90 countries optimize processes and make better decisions.