Atlanta unicorn Calendly has acquired San Francisco-based interview scheduling company Prelude, according to a Sept. 27 press release.
The acquisition will add the ability for Calendly’s customers to automate the process for scheduling interviews with job candidates. Calendly, a cloud-based scheduling platform, has more than 10 million users across 116 countries have used its platform, according to the release.
Calendly is investing in recruitment technology amid a competitive labor market. Companies have quickened the hiring process, raised wages or moved to new offices to lure new employees. The job market locally and nationally has officially surpassed pre-pandemic levels. Last month, unemployment in Georgia was at 2.8%, according to an announcement from the state.
“This acquisition is a testament to how Calendly’s profitable business model affords us the ability to pursue initiatives that will meet the growing demand of our customers,” said Tope Awotona, founder and CEO of Calendly.
The acquisition aims to make Calendly a market leader for external scheduling. It comes after strong growth for the scheduling startup, which was founded in 2013 in the Atlanta Tech Village incubator. In January 2021, Calendly surpassed a $3 billion valuation after a $350 million raise from Boston-based OpenView Venture Partners and San Francisco-based Iconiq Capital. Before that, the startup had been mostly bootstrapped.
Prelude was founded in August 2017 by Will Laufer and Alexander Soto, former employees at Clever Inc. Last year, the company received a $1.2 million seed investment from Fuel Capital, Jack Altman, Sam Altman and Elad Gil, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported.
Calendly saw a 100% growth rate with over 30 million people using the software five years after its launch, according to previous reporting by Atlanta Inno. In 2020, the company doubled its subscription revenue to $70 million.
