Today, pioneering European freelancer marketplace Malt has acquired COMTACH, the curated marketplace for independent management consultants and industry experts. Given the market-leading position of both companies in their respective markets, this agreement ensures a solid foundation for Malt’s goal to become Europe’s undisputed leader for companies seeking external resources and talent.
Founded in 2013, Malt’s innovative marketplace instantly and accurately matches the right freelance talent to businesses’ project needs. The Paris-based company offers secure and streamlined solutions for both parties to manage the freelance relationship, from issuing a brief to payment at project completion. In 2021, the started raised a hefty €80 million and has been consolidating its position as Europe’s leading freelancer platform ever since, with a community of 320,000 freelancers.
The acquisition extends Malt’s community of high-skilled freelancers to business consultants and takes them closer to reaching €1 billion business volume by 2024 – taking on the freelancing market which is currently valued at around €355 billion.
Vincent Huguet, Malt CEO, commented: “COMATCH is a champion in the field of business consulting marketplaces. As a fellow company that shares Malt’s “community first” approach, placing our talents at the core of the product and business to our vision for the future of work, we are eager and excited to bring our two worlds of high-skilled freelancers together.”
Based in Berlin, COMATCH is an online marketplace for independent top management consultants and industry experts. Since its 2015 launch, the firm now has a strong community of more than 15,000 profiles, has grown across nine markets and has a team of 130 employees. Back in 2018, we reported on their €8 million funding round, as the company consolidated itself in the DACH region.
The acquisition means that Malt will now be on its way to offering Europe’s most comprehensive network of high-skilled freelancers and management consultants, making them the ideal partner for all business activities. As a result, clients will now benefit from a marketplace with the best subject-matter specialists on hand to solve business challenges from strategy to execution. Combined, the two companies work with 80% of the CAC-40 and DAX-40 companies and together will build the largest European client network with more than 1,000 enterprises.
United over a shared vision of the future of work, one in which everyone has the power to choose how and whom they work with, Malt and COMATCH will focus their efforts on market-facing synergies to broaden the offerings for their clients and their community of highly-skilled freelancers.
The strengthening of Malt and COMATCH’s new offering will be supported by the hiring of 150 new roles bringing the total employee count to 600 by the end of 2022. The extension of services also means that dedicated teams will now work across eleven regions and countries, including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, the Middle East and North Africa, the Netherlands, Nordics, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.
Fueled by digital transformation and the increasing need to fill specific roles, both companies have witnessed a sharp uptake in client demand for independent resources – it’s certainly an exciting time for this growing market.
Dr Christoph Hardt, COMATCH Co-Founder and Managing Director, added: “Malt is Europe’s leading marketplace especially for digital freelance talents while COMATCH is the largest European consulting marketplace. We believe in a future where technology and business consulting continue to grow closer together, which is why we are very excited to jointly build Europe’s undisputed leading one-stop-shop where organizations can find the best independent professionals for any possible project.”