[Updated 4/6/10, 7:05 pm. See below.] Seattle-based Recruiting.com has sold its Jobster business to Boston-area-based talent management firm Zapoint for an undisclosed sum. I confirmed the acquisition this afternoon with Kate Gerber, director of sales and marketing for Recruiting.com, formerly called Jobster, which makes online software for recruiters and search tools for job seekers. The news was reported earlier today by TechCrunch and TechFlash, the latter of which has comments from Jeff Seely of Recruiting.com and Chris Twyman of Zapoint.
Gerber declined to comment on how many employees at Recruiting.com are affected by the acquisition. She said only that further plans for Recruiting.com have not been disclosed yet. Gerber said she has been on the job for about six months. I have heard elsewhere that the firm is down to about 10 people, after a series of layoffs. (The company had about 25 employees as of November 2008.)
Recruiting.com changed its name from Jobster last year. The company, founded in 2004, had previously raised more than $50 million in venture capital from investors including Ignition Partners, Trinity Ventures, Reed Elsevier Ventures, and Mayfield Fund—so it’s hard to imagine how this company could have generated anything close to a positive return on investment. But several former Jobster alums have gone on to do productive things, founding startups around Seattle and beyond, including Urbanspoon (now owned by IAC), Socialmedian (now owned by Xing), and Bacon Salt (still making everything taste like bacon).
Zapoint was founded in 2007 and makes online software and tools to help employers and job seekers find each other and manage their careers. The company raised a Series A round in 2008, led by HFF Investments.
[This paragraph added on 4/6/10] Jeff Seely wrote in to clarify: “Recruiting.com was not sold to Zapoint. The Jobster business, brand and URL were sold. The core [software as a service] recruiting application will continue to operate within Recruiting.com.”
