The Magnify team on the day it launched the new brand last year. (Courtesy Magnify)
Scott’s Addition-based staffing firm Magnify continues its growth, this time via acquisition.
The company, which was founded in 2014 and originally known as Executive Placements, on Monday acquired HuntSource, a staffing firm in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The deal marks the first time Magnify has absorbed another firm and gives it an expanded presence in Charlotte, where it opened an office in 2018 and has since been hunting for new business.
Magnify co-founder Alex Weedon said HuntSource brings with it a specialty in providing contract workers for cyber security roles, a field Magnify had yet to break into. And HuntSource has relationships with many of the large financial institutions in Charlotte that Magnify has been chasing as clients.
Alex Weedon
“We’ve been trying to look for ways to bolster our Charlotte presence,” Weedon said. “While we’ve been down there since 2018, it’s been our least productive office so far.”
The company’s other offices are in Phoenix, Arizona; South Florida; and the HandCraft Building in Scott’s Addition.
With a foot in the door through HuntSource’s cyber security work, Weedon said Magnify now has an opening to offer Charlotte clients its other staffing services for roles such as sales, marketing, accounting and other IT functions.
Coming over as part of the deal are a handful of full-time employees at HuntSource, including founder Jack Hall, who will stay on with Magnify. Hall will help lead the Charlotte cyber operations, while Magnify co-founder Dheryld Houston is also now based in Charlotte.
“(Hall) was at a point where he wanted to figure out how to take his career to the next level and we really are trying to be a much larger organization,” Weedon said of what motivated the deal.
HuntSource brings with it an unspecified number of contractors working in the field and $2.5 million-$4 million in annual revenue, Weedon said.
Depending on how the year goes, Weedon said that could help bring Magnify’s annual sales to $13 million-$16 million in 2024.
Magnify now has 32 full-time employees across its four offices, including 14 in Richmond. It has between 140-175 contractors working in the field at a given time, Weedon said.
Magnify moved into its Scott’s Addition headquarters last year, shortly after it rebranded from Executive Placements. It opened its South Florida operations in 2022 and Weedon said it hopes to continue its geographical expansion.
He said Nashville is likely the next area of focus for the firm, where it hopes to offer up its ranks of healthcare staffers to the massive healthcare sector in the Music City.