Calendly, a cloud $3B+ scheduling startup, has announced its first acquisition: Prelude, a startup that specialises in scheduling job interviews or other types of recruitment-related meetings.
The acquisition of Prelude is in line with Calendly’s mission to provide easy-to-use scheduling solutions for all market segments, especially for the recruitment industry, to modernise the workforce planning process and provide organisations with end-to-end solutions to external challenges.
Commenting on the new initiative, CEO Tope Awotona explained that it will accelerate the company’s vision “to holistically solve external scheduling challenges for individuals and teams in companies of all sizes, from SMB to enterprise.”
In a press release shared with reporters, Calendly noted that everyone involved in an organisation’s hiring process, including talent acquisition teams, hiring managers, and company executives, has specific meeting needs that require a timely, end-to-end scheduling automation solutions.
For example, a group interview where many stakeholders from different time zones and disciplines must find time together, or the dozens of quick meetings required to fill each position are just a few examples.
He added that Prelude allows companies to efficiently schedule interviews throughout the hiring cycle, from phone screens and hiring manager interviews to panel interviews.
Calendly is now banking on Prelude’s ability to expedite the hiring process, improve the quality of hiring, and keep candidates running smoothly for 100 companies, including Cloudflare, Duolingo and Glassdoor.
“As the market leader in scheduling automation, Calendly already sees millions of interviews and recruiting-related meetings scheduled via Calendly every month. Together, Calendly and Prelude will enable organizations of all sizes to streamline the coordination of every interview scenario,” says Tope Awotona.
Calendly has been focused on companies, not just individual users, for the past few years now. It released a group meeting feature to help teams schedule across time zones back in December 2021. The Prelude acquisition shows Calendly’s interest in the HR software space and hints at its desire to build out other specific use cases.
