Finnish growth company revamps recruitment: now it is expanding to Norway

Finnish market leader Duunitori launches its operations in a third country. The company is now expanding into Norway with the acquisition of the local Jobbsafari job search service. In recent years, Duunitori has also launched a business in Sweden, where it operates under the name Jobbland.

With the acquisition, Finnish market leader Duunitori will start operating Jobbsafari in Norway. The platform is sold by Danish market leader Jobindex, which, like Duunitori, helps employers and talent find each other. Kaare Danielsen, the founder of the company, is a pioneer in the field.

Jobindex was the world's first job search engine, founded in 1996, before Google. At one time, Jobindex partnered with Altavista, a search engine founded a year before Jobindex. The Danish company expanded into Sweden and Norway, but eventually decided to focus on the Danish market.

"What Jobindex and Duunitori have in common is that they are both entrepreneur-led pioneers. Jobindex was the first search engine in the industry, while Duunitori was the first to take job vacancies to social media. By boldly innovating recruitment, we have successfully challenged traditional players such as large media companies. With this strategy, a small startup was able to become the market leader in Finland," says Duunitori CEO and co-founder Thomas Grönholm.

"Now we are continuing our growth story abroad. As a Finnish platform business, this is an important step in our internalization. We wanted to go to Norway because it is an interesting market that needs new ways to connect employers and talent."

In the coming years, Duunitori will seek to modernize the field of recruitment in Finland, Sweden and Norway. Danielsen of Jobindex believes that Duunitori is in an excellent position to develop the market in Norway.

"We have been building our service for a long time and want to offer a first-class service to Norwegians. Now that we have decided to focus on Denmark, I am very happy that Duunitori will give the platform a good new home. As a reliable and modern innovator, Duunitori is just the right player to continue developing the service," says Danielsen.

Duunitori was founded in 2009 by two ​​entrepreneurs, Thomas Grönholm and Martti Kuusanmäki, who wanted to challenge the status quo in the recruitment industry. After some early experimentation and a start-up phase, the company has grown rapidly every year, even during the pandemic. Over the last six years, its turnover has grown by an average of around 70% a year. Today, the company employs over 100 people in Helsinki and Stockholm.