FCG Digital Oy becomes a part of Grade
The agreement between the seller, FCG, and the buyer, Grade, was signed on January 25, 2024. Completion, which takes place once the general market conditions has been met, is expected to take place during the first quarter of 2024.
FCG Digital is Finland’s leading provider of digital solutions for job advertising and recruitment towards the public sector. The recruitment software is currently used by a large proportion of Finnish municipalities, and its job portal handles over 4 million unique visitors annually, with more than 55,000 job advertisements and over half a million job applications. In addition to municipalities, FCG Digital serves the Finnish church, health regions, the Finnish state, and several of Finland’s largest cities.
Market-leading in HR-tech for the public sector
– Grade has experienced strong organic growth since 2021 when Grade, Varbi and Workbuster merged. Our customer base within public sector is steadily expanding, and our existing customers are choosing to digitalize more and more of their processes related to the employee journey. In 2023, Grade entered the Norwegian market through the acquisition of Jobbnorge. To enter Finland is a natural next step, so when the opportunity to merge with FCG Digital materialized, it felt like a strategically important decision and something we are very excited about, says Rickard Kajson, CEO at Grade.
Through the acquisition of FCG Digital Oy, Grade becomes one of the leading Nordic HR-tech players within the public sector, with operations in Norway, Sweden and Finland. Grade’s customer base consists of numerous Norwegian and Swedish regions, municipalities, universities, authorities, and major private companies – and now, a significant part of the public sector in Finland as well.
Digital solutions for the entire employee journey
– It’s fantastic that we have found an owner for our system solutions with such focus on recruitment and employee development within the public sector. With the sale, the offering significantly improves for FCG’s current system customers, says Tommi Kajasoja, CEO of FCG.
– We look forward to welcoming 54 new colleagues to Grade. Together, we will be able to offer FCG Digital’s customers additional opportunities to digitize the employee journey with digital reference checking, candidate feedback, learning, competency management, and employee development. The strength of our product suite lies in seamlessly following the employee throughout the entire employee lifecycle – of course, based on the requirements that organizations within the public sector demand, such as accessibility and security, says Rickard Kajson, CEO at Grade.
Business as usual for FCG Digital’s customers
As part of the acquisition, Grade acquires all shares of FCG Digital Oy from FCG, and operations continues as previously. Misa Leiber will continue to lead the Company as Country manager and responsible for day to day operations. He looks positively towards FCG Digital’s future.
– By becoming part of Grade, we have the opportunity to further enhance and develop our digital solutions to meet the needs of our customers. All our well-known system solutions, including their support and maintenance, will continue just as usual without interruption, along with the employees that our customers are familiar with, concludes Misa Leiber, Operations Manager at FCG Digital.
About Grade
The growing Grade Group now consists of the companies FCG Digital, Jobbnorge, Varbi, Grade, Workbuster, Realcruit, and Refensa. Grade provides flexible solutions in Talent Management for the entire employee journey. In 2024, Grade is expected to generate approximately 390 MSEK in revenue, of which around 370 MSEK is recurring revenue. The largest owner is Viking Venture.
About FCG Digital
FCG Digital is Finland’s leading provider of digital solutions for job advertising and recruitment within the public sector. The company had a turnover of approximately 67 MSEK in 2023.
Contact
Rickard Kajson – CEO, Grade: +46 76 501 05 36
David Pode – M&A, Grade: +46 70 540 99 55