Access buys Talent Funnel to boost hospitality hiring

The Access Group has agreed to acquire Talent Funnel, adding a hospitality-focused applicant tracking system to Access Hospitality.

Talent Funnel serves more than 100 customers in the UK hospitality sector, including The Ivy Collection, GAIL's Bakery, Itsu, Compass Group and Nightcap. Its software is used across more than 2,193 hospitality sites and supports about 3 million applications and the recruitment of 75,000 employees each year.

Founded in 2016, the business specialises in recruitment software for hospitality employers. Its platform includes branded careers sites, candidate management and automated onboarding workflows, with AI tools for high-volume hiring, screening, shift flexibility and compliance.

The acquisition expands Access Hospitality's people management offering, which already includes Rotaready Evo for workforce management and HR, CPL Learning Evo for learning and development, and Paycircle Evo for payroll. Talent Funnel will join Access Hospitality as part of Access Evo, the group's wider software platform.

The deal comes as hospitality operators continue to grapple with labour shortages, high staff turnover and seasonal swings in demand. Employers have been under pressure to fill roles quickly while meeting compliance requirements and maintaining candidate quality.

Access said the addition of Talent Funnel would extend its software offering across the employee lifecycle, from recruitment and onboarding to scheduling, training and pay. It said Access Evo is designed to let organisations work across products, workflows and data within one platform.

Talent Funnel has recorded rapid growth in recent years. Since 2022, it has increased its customer base by 435%, reflecting demand for specialist recruitment software in hospitality.

Access is one of the larger UK-headquartered business management software providers. Across its wider operations, it serves more than 160,000 small and mid-sized organisations in commercial and non-profit sectors in Europe, the US and Asia-Pacific, and employs more than 9,500 people.

Access Hospitality says it supports more than 45,000 hospitality sites in the UK and more than 100,000 venues worldwide. Adding a specialist applicant tracking system gives it a more direct presence in software used at the start of the hiring process.

Sector focus

Hospitality faces distinct recruitment pressures because operators often manage multiple sites, large frontline workforces and frequent peaks in hiring. Software suppliers have responded with products tailored to those workflows, particularly around job advertising, candidate screening, onboarding and shift-based staffing requirements.

Talent Funnel's customer list suggests it has established a position with branded operators and larger multi-site employers. Those customers include restaurant groups, bakery chains, catering businesses and leisure operators, all of which typically recruit at scale and face high turnover in customer-facing roles.

Martin Verdon-Roe, Chief Commercial Officer, Access Hospitality F&B, said: "Talent Funnel is the right acquisition because it has been built specifically for the way hospitality businesses recruit. The team has created a solution that meets the demands of high-volume, multi-site hiring while delivering a great experience for both employers and candidates."

Verdon-Roe added: "The growth the business has achieved in recent years demonstrates both the quality of the team and the demand for technology that addresses hospitality's unique recruitment challenges. We share a common vision for using technology and AI to solve real operational challenges. Bringing Talent Funnel into Access Hospitality strengthens our ability to support the entire employee journey, from attracting and onboarding talent through to workforce management, learning and payroll. As part of Access Evo, customers will benefit from an interoperable platform where data, workflows and AI work together, reducing complexity and helping teams spend less time switching between systems and more time focusing on their people and guests."

Management plans

The founders of Talent Funnel said they would remain with the business after the acquisition. That continuity may matter to customers in a specialist sector where product design and industry knowledge often play a large role in retention and growth.

Chris Eccles and Andre Boeke, Co-CEOs of Talent Funnel, said: "Joining Access gives Talent Funnel the resources to develop our product further and faster than we could as a standalone business. We are passionate about what we have built for the hospitality sector and excited about what becoming part of Access will enable for our product, our people and our customers."

They added: "Access shares our focus on innovation, customer success and practical applications of AI. Both of us are staying with the business and we are looking forward to the next chapter."