Top 5 HR vendor mergers and acquisitions of 2023

Wow – what a great year for HR vendors.

Over the last 12 months, we’ve seen some massive mergers and acquisitions that have shaped the sector for the better, allowing their customers to transform and improve talent experience, advance technology, and boost staff productivity and retention – to name just a few benefits.

As the year draws to a close, we reflect on some of the most prominent acquisitions, highlighting Silver Lake, Zoom, Lepaya, HireVue, and Edenred.

Silver Lake and CPP Investments’ acquisition of Qualtrics

As a leader in the experience management (XM) software category, Qualtrics was acquired by technology investing leader Silver Lake, in partnership with Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

100% of Qualtrics’ shares – that Silver Lake didn’t already own – have been acquired, including the entirety of SAP’s majority ownership interest.

As a result, Qualtrics’ stockholders are entitled to receive US$18.15 in cash for each share of common stock, which has ceased trading on the NASDAQ stock exchange.

XM has never been more important than it is right now. To be able to go into this next chapter at our size and scale as the leader in experience management— and do it alongside some of the best investors in the world—is a part of the Qualtrics story that no one could have imagined,” said Ryan Smith, Qualtrics founder and executive chairman. “I couldn’t be more excited for this next chapter for Qualtrics.”XM has never been more important than it is right now. To be able to go into this next chapter at our size and scale as the leader in experience management— and do it alongside some of the best investors in the world—is a part of the Qualtrics story that no one could have imagined,” said Ryan Smith, Qualtrics founder and executive chairman. “I couldn’t be more excited for this next chapter for Qualtrics.”

Qualtrics’ CEO Zig Serafin also shared that the acquisition has helped Qualtrics’ position as an XM leader, particularly as its AI-powered platform now helps more than 19,000 organizations deliver exceptional experiences.

Zoom’s acquisition of Workvivo

To offer customers new ways of keeping employees connected, engaged and informed, Zoom acquired Workvivo back in April.

Since joining forces, Zoom has been focusing on unlocking the potential of its employees with the intension of evolving company culture, while continuing its evolution to provide the best end-to-end collaboration platform.

“Workvivo has set the standard for employee communications, helping businesses reach and engage millions of employees worldwide,” says Kelly Steckelberg, chief financial officer at Zoom.

“Workvivo prioritizes ease-of-use and simplicity of design, offering the best user experience which is a perfect match to Zoom’s DNA.”

Supporting this, Workvivo’s capabilities will be integrated into Zoom’s platform to help provide a best-in-class employee experience.

Lepaya’s acquisition of Krauthammer

Upskilling solution platform Lepaya acquired leadership training and management development company Krauthammer, back in April.

Combined, the company has more than 400 employees, holding offices in Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, London, Munich, Paris, Shanghai, Stockholm, and Zurich.

This groundbreaking acquisition has enabled Lepaya to become a go-to upskilling and transformation platform reaching over 1,000 clients across the globe clients, including Dell, ING, Maersk, and Freudenberg.

The acquisition of Krauthammer is a major step forward for Lepaya – making Lepaya the leading capability platform that boosts productivity and retention of workforces of the world’s largest organizations,” said René Janssen, co-CEO of Lepaya. “In just our fifth year of existence, we will touch the lives of more than 250.000 employees, while aiming to eventually help the full global workforce of 3.3B.”The acquisition of Krauthammer is a major step forward for Lepaya – making Lepaya the leading capability platform that boosts productivity and retention of workforces of the world’s largest organizations,” said René Janssen, co-CEO of Lepaya. “In just our fifth year of existence, we will touch the lives of more than 250.000 employees, while aiming to eventually help the full global workforce of 3.3B.”

Lepaya’s proven platform-driven approach combined with Krauthammer’s deep learning expertise marked a major step in the industry, providing an advanced capability platform to clients.

HireVue’s acquisition of Modern Hire

In a bid to transform the global talent experience, HireVue – which brings in an annual revenue of US$100mili – acquired intelligent hiring platform Modern Hire.

Completing the acquisition, HireVue will continue to assert itself as an industry leader in modern hiring solutions, which uses ethical AI to help organizations look beyond an employee’s CV.

As HireVue’s mission is to change lives by connecting talent to opportunities, Anthony Reynolds, HireVue’s CEO, said that the acquisition of Modern Hire will enable the businesses to continue to push the boundaries in the realms of hiring technology.

He adds: “The team at Modern Hire are among the best scientific minds and tech innovators and we are thrilled to welcome them to the HireVue family.”He adds: “The team at Modern Hire are among the best scientific minds and tech innovators and we are thrilled to welcome them to the HireVue family.”

Since completion, the organizations have shared their experience in video interviewing, AI-driven assessments, virtual tryouts, and scheduling automation, to create innovative solutions that allow organizations to understand and activate a candidate’s potential beyond their background and experience.

Edenred’s acquisition of Reward Gateway

Edenred, the world leading platform for people at work acquired global employee engagement company Reward Gateway for £1.15 billion from funds managed by Abry Partners and Castik Capital.

Since joining forces in May 2023, the companies have brought a unique proposition at scale to the market by providing end-to-end employee services, spanning digital employee benefits and employee savings, to name a few.

Now, the businesses offer a range of solutions through the extended reach of Reward Gateway‘s platform into new regions and countries, including Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Romania, and Spain.

In doing so, HR departments are able to provide multi-country employee benefits and engagement platforms, enabling them to empower other businesses to use the right combination of benefits and engagement tools.

“The combination of Reward Gateway’s operations and technology with Edenred’s position as a global market leader across one million corporate clients in 45 countries, offers an accelerated path to achieve our mission of ‘making the world a better place to work’,” says Nick Burns, global CEO of Reward Gateway.

“As we will aim at a single unified platform, we will benefit from economies of scale to build tailored solutions for specific markets.

"Bringing together our collective strengths, from commercial reach to product innovation and advanced technology, will put us in a position to provide HR leaders with a truly market-beating solution.”