xrecruiter cofounder faces long road back after catastrophic injuries
A recent GoFundMe post (including the photo, above) has publicly revealed the huge human cost of a mental health breakdown that led to the severing of the business relationship between xrecruiter cofounders, Blake Thompson and Declan Kluver, in 2025.
The page was established on Tuesday by Angela Smith, a friend of Declan and his wife, Deanna Squires, and within 24 hours has raised just under three-quarters of the $22,000 target amount. The initiative was prompted by the mid-2025 suicide attempt by Kluver.
As detailed in the GoFundMe page, “In mid-2025, during a period of deep depression and hopelessness, Declan attempted to take his own life. In the early hours of the morning, while out on a run, he stepped off a 25-metre cliff. Declan survived — but with catastrophic, life-altering injuries. He sustained a fractured pelvis, lumbar spine injuries, four broken ribs, both ankles broken, internal and external fractures, and significant nerve damage. He underwent multiple surgeries and required a stoma for four months following surgery. Declan spent over six months in hospital and rehabilitation.”
Kluver’s mental health started deteriorating in early 2025, which a subsequent diagnosis identified as bipolar disorder.
Smith’s post continues, “As his mental health deteriorated, Declan sought professional help and entered treatment to stabilise and recover. During this time, he was suddenly removed from his role within the business he had built from the ground up and lost his primary source of income. At the same time, he became involved in an ongoing legal dispute relating to his exit from the business — all while trying to navigate a serious and newly diagnosed mental illness.”
Kluver’s confronting future is in sharp contrast to the prospects that appeared on the horizon in 2024.
Things were so much brighter just over twelve months ago when Xrecruiter was named at #1 in this year’s AFR Fast Starters List in December 2024.
Xrecruiter, cofounded by Kluver and Thompson in August 2022, is a platform designed to provide start-up recruitment agency owners with a ready-to-go back-office platform (“You recruit. We handle the rest”)
Kluver was the Director of Blended Employment, a recruitment agency specialising in technical sales engineers for manufacturing and industrial companies and Thompson was the Director of a sales recruitment agency, Vendito.
According to the AFR, xrecruiter reported sales of $16 million in the 2024 financial year, after sales of $900,000 the previous financial year – a growth rate of 2385% based on the income derived from “the platform supporting 55 agencies with 17 other owners in various stages of set-up for an early 2025 launch”.
Xrecruiter won the national ‘Start-Up of the Year’ title in November 2023 and also won the Excellence in Business Innovation award at the RCSAS 2024 Industry Awards.
The business model is an upfront fee plus a percentage of each invoice.
The xrecruiter website boasts “107 + agencies growing their agency right now”, and “$66m + earned by recruiters (just like you) under their own brand”, “$518k average”, and “19 days to pay back your start up investment”.
A LinkedIn post from last week by CEO, Blake Thompson, promises, “… a guaranteed six months of salary, paid by us, to remove the pressure and uncertainty of those early months in business.”
The post goes on, “We have a 96% success rate, and new partners billing on average $97,000 in their first 3 months of business.”
Based on Kluver’s LinkedIn profile, he left his role as xrecruiter’s Chief Business Officer in August last year.
According to Smith’s GoFundMe post Kluver, “.. sustained a fractured pelvis, lumbar spine injuries, four broken ribs, both ankles broken, internal and external fractures, and significant nerve damage. He underwent multiple surgeries and required a stoma for four months following surgery. Declan spent over six months in hospital and rehabilitation.”
The current impacts of Kluver’s physical health are confronting, “At just 32 years old, Declan is now relearning how to walk. He can walk short distances with a frame and assistance, but he continues to live with ongoing nerve damage, foot drop, limited sensation in his legs and feet, and loss of bladder and bowel control. His medical team has been clear that recovery will take many months — and possibly years — with outcomes still uncertain.”
The GoFundMe appeal is to provide financial assistance to the Kluver family for the costs associated with Declan’s recovery, including ongoing rehabilitation and physiotherapy; mobility aids and medical equipment; home modifications to ensure safe access; specialist appointments and follow-up care; and family living expenses.
It’s heartening to see how many people in our industry have already chipped in to support Declan, his wife, and their three children.
If you would like to help, please donate here.
Thanks for openly talking about this Ross. Schadd flagged the Gofundme page with our team in a meeting this week. This is a confronting story but an important one for our industry to sit with. We talk a lot about performance, billings, growth, success – especially in recruitment and start up environments, we simply don’t talk enough about what happens when the person behind the performance is struggling. Depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder and other conditions don’t disappear just because someone is highly capable, ambitious or high achieving. In my first year of recruitment (30 years ago this year) I had my first panic attack and ‘back then’ it was almost celebrated as a form of “you must be a real recruiter now.” We have clearly come along way but not far enough. None of us know the full story here, but it’s a prompt for all leaders, founders and manager to reflect on how we show up when things are hard, not just when it is all bright and shiny.