Student job finder WayUp acquires competitor Looksharp

WayUp is earning its very first acquisition — it is shopping for the in the same way concentrated Looksharp.

Both of those companies have created task listing web sites for faculty students and modern graduates, but WayUp co-founder and CEO Liz Wessel (pictured earlier mentioned with Looksharp CEO Andrew Maguire) informed me they are complementary in a fairly certain way.

The essential, she claimed, is search motor optimization — following all, that is exactly where task seekers typically start wanting for alternatives. And though WayUp’s student profiles do properly on Google (in some scenarios ranking earlier mentioned LinkedIn), Wessel claimed Looksharp has much better Search engine optimisation when it will come to task listings.

For that cause — and for the reason that WayUp and Looksharp “had comparable buyers but not the same users” — the two companies started out talking about a partnership, which sooner or later turned into a conversation about a attainable acquisition.

“When I fulfilled with Liz and [co-founder JJ Fliegelman], we recognized that both of those of our companies needed to alter the way students protected work, and how firms find student talent,” Maguire claimed in the acquisition release. “Since we both of those think in the ability of making a immediate-to-customer firm, versus promoting into universities or professors, we ended up in a position to simply map out what a deeper partnership would glimpse like.”

WayUp is not disclosing the money phrases of the deal. Looksharp experienced raised a lot more than $ten million in funding from buyers, which includes 500 Startups, Artis Ventures, Kapor Money and Subtraction Money. WayUp, meanwhile, has raised virtually $9 million.

Wessel claimed the put together firm will be integrating Looksharp into the WayUp platform around the training course of the next year. In addition, 5 Looksharp staff associates (which includes Maguire) will be signing up for, bringing WayUp’s complete headcount to a lot more than fifty.

By the way, in scenario you imagine WayUp is only concentrated on Search engine optimisation, Wessel also touted the company’s technologies, which delivers personalised suggestions for work for which an applicant would basically be qualified. That, she claimed, is why 23 per cent of WayUp apps final result in an interview, when compared to the industry ordinary of two per cent.

“What we observed is, we know how to match men and women with work, we just need to have a lot more men and women,” Wessel claimed. “There are a couple of ways to do that — 1 is Search engine optimisation … This is likely to expedite our expansion.”

Highlighted Image: WayUp