While venture capitalists, startup founders and major tech companies compete to see who can say “AI” the most in a week, people are busy building other, more useful stuff.

And one particular group has caught our eyes: Companies that build software for human resource management.

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TechCrunch+ noted in March that there’s a burgeoning group of HRtech unicorns in the United States that are ripe to go public when that window opens. But our initial scope proved limited, because HRtech is hot in Europe right now as well and it’s worth paying attention to.

It makes sense that HRtech has managed to grow rapidly and still fly under the radar — it’s not going to be hyped as the economic model of the future and neither will it be criticized for having the capability to potentially end civilization.

Still, HRtech companies often find themselves moving hundreds of millions of dollars — if not billions — through their channels, and have therefore become large and lucrative.

Today, we’re digesting notes from a recent GP Bullhound report on European HRtech to expand our general comprehension of the sector in anticipation of an environment in which IPOs are again a reality.

Morphing into unicorns, one paycheck at a time

Strikingly, GP Bullhound reports there is just as much bullish sentiment around HRtech as around AI and climate tech. “We look for these sectors to produce the next tech giants, with maintained if not increased bull-market funding levels and exponential growth in the number of companies,” the report said.

While everyone keeps talking about AI, HRtech startups are quietly building toward a $24B market by Anna Heim originally published on TechCrunch