A new chapter has begun for Nexten, a platform that aims to match tech experts with companies seeking to hire them. The startup, founded by in 2018, has now become “Elite Group Recruitment Luxembourg” following a fundraising round of €700,000 that included well-known Luxembourg entrepreneur , as well as Christophe Bianco (whose startup Excellium Services was bought by Thales), additional business angels from the Luxembourg Business Angels Network (LBAN) and French seed fund Amaro.
Luxembourg VC firm Expon Capital, via its Digital Tech Fund, invested in Nexten just before Covid-19 hit in 2020 and followed up with another €1m or so in the last fundraising round in 2021 (amounting to 16% of whole round). It isn’t known if the firm has put more money into the pot.
“It’s a nice project,” comments Bianco. “As the LBAN was already involved, I’m trying to support this risk--I’ve put in a few tickets, like for a cybersecurity training centre, a bit like École 42 but for cybersecurity, so that these young people can find work more easily. And to help develop the ecosystem.”
Without waiting for the official press release, expected this week, Pierre Thomas announced that Eurocom Group--of which he is the founder and owner--would become the majority shareholder of the new company, with a stake just larger than that of Laurent Halimi, its new CEO. Until he took the job, Halimi had been heading up British company Elite Recruitment, which will give its branding to the Luxembourg startup. The Luxembourg site will also become the group’s European headquarters while the London branch will become a subsidiary. The merger between Elite Recruitment and Nexten was announced last autumn.
Instead of providing a broad range of services for developers, Elite Group Recruitment Luxembourg has launched Cyberr, a recruitment platform focused on cybersecurity, widely accepted as an important area for recruitment and one in which it is currently difficult to recruit. A ISC2 study on the global cybersecurity labour force has found that Europe is currently in need of 348,000 such profiles, an increase of 9.7% compared to just one year earlier (2022).
The startup is expected to raise a further €800,000 before the end of the year.
This article in Paperjam. It has been translated and edited for Delano.