The innovative online recruitment marketplace, gatszu.com, has recently agreed a deal with Capital Business Media (CBM) that sees the London-based media group take a seven percent equity stake in the fast-growing Manchester-based Internet technology business, in return for a “significant investment.”
Launched in February 2010, gatszu.com is an online platform that connects employers to a nationwide network of fully vetted, independent recruitment agencies. It gives employers the opportunity to upload their vacancies onto the platform for free, before setting the fixed fee they would be prepared to pay an agency should they successfully place a candidate within the employer’s organisation.
Since it’s inception, gatszu.com has been used by a number of high street retailers, specialist legal, finance, healthcare, construction and IT firms, corporate giants and SMEs. In each case it has proven to reduce each employer’s expenditure on agency recruitment by as much as 40%, while giving them access to one of the widest talent pools in the UK and streamlining their recruitment process.
The deal with Capital Business Media will give gatszu.com funds to further develop the functionality of its website, employ sales staff and increase its marketing activity. In addition, a partnership with CBM’s Business Matters magazine, which is the UK’s largest monthly business magazine with a ABC audited subscription base of 47,000, will provide gatszu.com with a vehicle in which to market its service to its core audience of SME owners and directors. In return, gatszu.com will provide Business Matters magazine with a portal that will allow visitors to the magazine’s website to access gatszu.com and upload their vacancies directly from www.bmmagazine.co.uk.
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“We have been working on this deal for a good while and it is great to finally have everything in place,” said gatszu.com’s founder and Managing Director, Stuart Murray. “Capital Business Media has made a significant investment, which will allow gatszu.com to develop and improve its service yet further, while the partnership with Business Matters magazine, which boasts a monthly readership of 174,800, will give us an excellent opportunity to engage our target market: SME owner/managers.”
Richard Alvin, Group Managing Director of Capital Business Media, said: “We have been watching gatszu.com closely since its launch and it has lived up to its billing as the most revolutionary and innovative product to hit the UK recruitment industry in the last 50 years; an industry that is worth £22 billion a year. We recognised that an alliance between the two parties would benefit both, and we were delighted to agree an equity partnership and a first-round funding package. Working together, we believe both CBM and gatszu.com will grow as a result of this deal and I am personally looking forward to aiding gatszu.com’s expansion over the coming months and years. It is an exciting, young business driven by an energetic and knowledgeable team, and I believe it has a very bright future.”
