M3 Invests in Physicians Career Portal praktischArzt

The German physician career portal praktischArzt has a new shareholder. The Japanese M3 group is acquiring a minority stake in pA Medien GmbH, the operator of the praktischArzt network, via its European subsidiary M3 Medical Holdings. The synergy established between the two companies shall allow for future growth of the praktischArzt brand in Germany and throughout Europe.

Through a clear target-group orientation on health care professionals, the M3 network today has access to over 6 million doctors worldwide. Masaki Jomori, Senior Vice President (M3 EU), verifies monthly numerous investment requests from both young and matured companies. When establishing his relationship with the founders of praktischArzt about possible participation opportunities, he was immediately excited with his overall evaluation of the company: "I could not believe that such a small team had generated such a high reach in such a short period of time. I was immediately impressed by the outstanding product developed by praktischArzt and the team behind it."

The collaboration between the two companies was established by Marijo Jurasovic, Managing Director of Vidal MMI Germany GmbH, a subsidiary of M3 in Germany, which operates the portals Gelbe Liste and Rehaklinken.de amongst others. "From our initial conversations with the founders and managing directors of praktischArzt Timo Krasko and Michael Schmitt, it became clear there was a great connection between the companies, humanely and professionally alike. Although praktischArzt is a young company, their entire teams’ high level of professionalism, agility and comprehensive market knowledge quickly convinced me that we needed to invest and establish a long-term relationship with this company," says Jurasovic.

When praktischArzt had over 1,000,000 visitors per month for the first time in November 2019, an important milestone was reached for the company. Since then, the portal has recorded seven-digit visitor numbers every month. "Our motto has always been that applicant reach and customer satisfaction must be, and is, our top priority," said Michael Schmitt. “Over the course of the past few years, our company had received various investment offers, and until today, we had passed on all of them. Our company philosophy and values ​​are very important to us. After our initial discussions, it was clear: both companies tick the same way. For us, that was the decisive factor for a common future," spoke Schmitt.

Already today, praktischArzt continues to break new grounds and combining a job board for doctors with its career portal. Through continuous optimization of various applicant channels such as Google and social media, as well as a comprehensive information portal, retargeting and partner network, praktischArzt stands out from classic job portals. "The match was obvious. M3 has a stake in the Gelbe Liste portal and the RehaKliniken.de directory through Vidal MMI Germany GmbH, which allows us to expand the already high reach in Germany of the praktischArzt network. In addition, we obtain direct and indirect access channels to physicians throughout Europe via other M3 subsidiaries such as physician networks, research institutions and education providers. Through the permanent and comprehensive presence with physicians, we reach not only the actively job-seeking physicians, but also those who do not even know today that they will change their job tomorrow," says Timo Krasko.

The Common Goal: Increase Market Share and Develop New Business Opportunities

Since its launch in 2014, the praktischArzt network has continuously and consistently grown organically. Thanks to the investment and the numerous potential synergies, praktischArzt will continue to scale in order to gain additional market share in Germany, develop new business areas and internationalize the job board. With the platform’s rollout in Switzerland and Austria, internationalization has already begun; in Germany, the newly launched medi-Karriere portal has started to expand the target group to care, therapy and medical assistants.

"A major advantage over our competitors is our lean, yet focused corporate structure combined with our high level of marketing expertise. This is our USP: we can offer our customers significantly more favorable prices than notable competitors while investing a large portion of revenues to generate applicant reach. This will enable us to further increase our already considerable market share in the future," says Michael Schmitt.

The combined commitment potential between M3 and praktischArzt is also expected to open up new business areas and provide physicians with additional offers via the praktischArzt network. "The M3 network provides many exciting opportunities for us, such as education and research employment opportunities, which we can present to our large physician readership, thus, enhance our existing offerings," confirms Timo Krasko.

Well-known Personalities from the Industry Support in the Collaboration

A well-recognized and respected support team has been established for this cooperation: Mike York, managing director of one of the leading American physician job boards PracticeMatch, as well as Norbert Froitzheim, former managing director of the German publishing group Deutscher Ärzteverlag have joined the newly established Board of Directors. These industry leaders will support international knowledge transfer and process optimizations to enhance further portal development within the praktischArzt network. Additionally, Tom Renneberg, Managing Director with the physician community Esanum, and minority shareholder since August 2018 will continue as a much-valued member within the organization.

The minority investment was executed through M3 Medical Holdings, a European subsidiary based in England.

The praktischArzt network is operated by pA Medien GmbH and represents a combination of job exchange and career portal. The main business field is the publication of job advertisements for physicians, medical students and other persons from the health care sector.

Business segment: recruiting and job advertising, digital outreach to HCPs and operation of career portals