Market leaders join forces: XING acquires employer review platform kununu

• Acquisition date: January 1, 2013
• Initial purchase price: approx. EUR 3.6 million
• Additional purchase price payments totaling around EUR 5.8 million due upon fulfillment of future criteria

Hamburg/Vienna, January 8, 2013 –XING AG, operator of the leading business network in German-speaking countries, is to acquire Austrian-based firm

kununu GmbH with economic effect from January 1, 2013. A corresponding purchase agreement between XING AG and the kununu GmbH partners will be signed today. kununu was established in 2007 and is headquartered in Vienna. kununu is the leading platform for employer reviews in German-speaking countries with around 3 million page impressions per month. Initially, XING AG will pay the vendors around EUR 3.6 million upon signature of the contract. Based on a number of factors, in particular kununu GmbH’s revenue and EBITDA development over the course of 2013 and 2014, further payments totaling around EUR 5.8 million may be made by February 2015. XING AG’s acquisition of the leading employer review platform in German-speaking countries adds a key dimension to the value chain of its e-Recruiting business.

kununu is to job searches as hotel review platforms are to travel plans: kununu gives employees, former employees, trainees and interns the opportunity to rate their employer in various categories such as working environment, promotion opportunities, and salary. This provides job-seekers with an insight into companies from people who actually work there. Inversely, companies can take out a paid employer branding profile on kununu and use it to showcase their business to prospective job applicants.
 

Thomas Vollmoeller, CEO at XING AG: “We’re very happy to welcome the kununu team to the XING family. XING is already Germany’s market leader when it comes to social recruiting. Our acquisition of kununu will significantly boost our position within this growth market. By uniting forces, kununu and XING can provide unique insights into companies. We can also help businesses to improve their image and, with it, their chances in the battle for top talent. This is underlined by the fact that public employer reviews by their employees render long-term employer branding as absolutely essential.”

kununu CEO

Martin Poreda sees XING’s takeover as a logical consequence of an existing cooperation: “Our cooperation has been in place for around two years, during which time we generated a number of extremely positive effects as a result of uniting forces. Together we achieve much more, can react more swiftly than before, and reach out to more customers. We want to ring in a new era for the jobs and careers industry where employer reviews are the new currency of employer branding.”

The ensuing joint market approach allows XING and kununu to combine their expertise, range and sales teams, and also position themselves perfectly within the growing social recruiting market. This can be seen by the 24% rise in the number of employers using social media to look for new employees when comparing the figures for 2012 with those for 2010 (Source: ICR Social Media Recruiting Report 2012).

XING CEO Thomas Vollmoeller: “Social media recruiting growth levels in the U.S. have been much higher for several years. Studies such as the one from Jobvite show that more than 90% of businesses in the U.S. use social media in their recruiting work. But the German-speaking market is now starting to catch up.” kununu has been profitable and returning a positive cash flow since the previous financial year. kununu founders Martin and Mark Poreda will stay as the company’s managing directors. There will also be no changes made to the kununu brand or portal. kununu employs 30 people, all of whom will retain their jobs.
About XING
XING is the social network for business professionals. More than 12 million members worldwide – with more than 6 million in German-speaking countries alone - use XING to boost their business, job, and career. XING is a platform where professionals from all kinds of different industries can meet up, find jobs, colleagues, new assignments, cooperation partners, experts and generate business ideas. Members can meet and exchange views in over 50,000 specialist groups, while also getting together at networking events. The platform is operated by XING AG, which was founded in Hamburg, Germany, in 2003, has been publicly listed since 2006, and listed on the TecDAX since September 2011. In December 2010, XING acquired amiando AG, a Munich-based company and Europe’s leading provider of online event management and ticketing. Please visit

www.xing.com for more information.