Whoz Raises €25 Million in Funding Led by PSG Equity
Whoz provides AI-driven talent and project management solutions that empower their clients to boost performance and optimize talent utilization and retention
With the strategic, operational and financial support of PSG Equity, Whoz intends to capitalize on the growing digitization opportunities in the professional services sector to strengthen its leadership position in France and establish itself as a European and international leader in digital staffing and project portfolio management
PARIS - Whoz, a SaaS solution delivering smart staffing and talent and project portfolio management for professional services companies and IT departments of large companies, is pleased to announce €25 million in funding led by PSG Equity (“PSG”), a growth equity firm partnering with software and technology-enabled services companies to help accelerate their growth and build scale across Europe and the US.
Whoz is a pioneer in the digitization of “staffing” for professional services companies and IT departments
Founded in 2016 by experienced consulting and IT professionals, Whoz has established itself as a leader in the French market in the digitization of talent management, staffing and project portfolio management for professional services companies of all sizes (IT service companies, consulting and auditing firms and engineering firms) and IT departments of large companies.
Available in SaaS, Whoz’s solution addresses the entire staffing process: skills mapping, team building, management planning and identification of skills gap trends in order to adjust recruitment and training plans. Whoz also enables activity forecasts based on staffing capacity.
Through its SaaS solution, Whoz allows its clients to have a real-time overview of their available talent pool to match the most appropriate talent with the specific needs of projects and/or clients, while also taking into account the talent’s skills and development preferences.
In today’s environment of a scarcity of talent, staffing is a driver of competitive advantage for companies
The market for talent recruitment and retention is extremely competitive and this has been significantly accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. With remote working, talent management and hyper-specialization of skills, we believe companies will need to profoundly transform themselves. To remain competitive, it is our view that they must digitize their internal processes, especially in aligning their available skills and staffing, while also meeting client needs, managing the successful delivery of projects and retaining their talent.
Within this context, the technological solutions developed by Whoz aim to add value to the fast-growing professional services and IT sector – representing a market with revenues of over $100 billion in France and approximately $1 trillion including large international markets such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany and India. Whoz’s solution not only allows professional services companies and IT departments to optimize the staffing of tens of thousands of missions each month by considering the specific needs of clients, but also the development goals of talents. In short, this matching aims to provide a win-win outcome for both the client and the talents.
PSG: a strategic partner to accelerate Whoz’s ambition to become a global leader in digital staffing
This new partnership aspires to allow Whoz to leverage PSG’s B2B software expertise and international network to bolster its presence in the French market while expanding into new regions like the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and India. Currently, Whoz’s technologies are implemented in more than 50 countries for large clients, including IT services leaders such as Devoteam, Egis, Open and Econocom, as well as for large project-based companies like Engie and Thales. To reinforce its expansion strategy, Whoz plans to double its headcount from 50 to 110 people by the end of the year, particularly in R&D, sales and marketing teams, as well as the client relationship team.
Dany Rammal, Managing Director, Head of Europe at PSG, commented: “In a fast-changing global environment, companies are increasingly turning to professional services companies to support their transformation and digitization journey. In Whoz, we have identified a pioneer with a strong specialization in talent management and staffing for professional services companies who need to identify the most appropriate skills within their teams to meet their clients’ specific and increasingly advanced demands. The solution provided by Whoz is all the more impressive in that it helps enable a significant return on investment for clients, which include leading companies in the French and international markets.”
Jean Philippe Couturier, CEO and co-founder at Whoz, added: “We are really proud to welcome PSG as a strategic partner which we believe will accelerate our ambition of becoming a global leader in digital staffing. In our view, their support will be a huge factor in developing our AI technologies, strengthening our offering and boosting our business development. Our decision to partner with PSG was an easy one. I was immediately impressed by the professionalism of their teams and the financial and human resources that PSG makes available to its portfolio of companies to help them pursue their goals.”
Since its inception, PSG has demonstrated the value of its dedicated method for software companies in seeking to accelerate the growth of its investments and empower them to gain significant market share with a view to market consolidation. PSG’s teams work hand-in-hand with founders and management teams to support them in their day-to-day strategic decisions, drawing from their strength in M&A and international expansion, especially in Europe and the United States, while pursuing a sustained investment plan. Whoz is PSG’s 7th platform investment in France and its 17th in Europe.
About Whoz
Founded in 2016 by experienced consulting and IT professionals, Whoz has established itself as a leader in the digitization of Talent and Staffing Management for professional services companies (IT services companies, consulting and auditing firms and engineering firms of all sizes) and IT departments for large companies, with more than 30,000 active users across more than 50 countries. It has optimized 55,000 missions representing total revenues of €2 billion. With its Talent Cloud AI platform, Whoz maps a wide range of internal skills and talent available to service companies to efficiently allocate resources to meet the client’s needs. This gives companies in real-time an overview of their available talent pool to meet the market’s needs rapidly and effectively, thereby optimizing their business, supporting their growth and unlocking their talent. https://www.whoz.com/en
About PSG
PSG is a growth equity firm that partners with software and technology-enabled services companies to help them navigate transformational growth, capitalize on strategic opportunities and build strong teams. Having backed more than 100 companies and facilitated over 400 add-on acquisitions, PSG brings extensive investment experience, deep expertise in software and technology and a firm commitment to collaborating with management teams. Founded in 2014, PSG operates out of offices in Boston, Kansas City, London, Paris, Madrid and Tel-Aviv. To learn more about PSG, visit www.psgequity.com.