Edtech startup upGrad buys recruitment firm Rekrut India

The amount was undisclosed

Homegrown online higher education company upGrad on Tuesday said it has acquired Mumbai-based recruitment and staffing solutions company Rekrut India, for an undisclosed amount.

upGrad hopes that the acquisition of Rekrut will turbocharge its career engine by opening up wider placement opportunities and propelling accessibility of its learners to Rekrut's hiring partners.

Rekrut has built a wide reach through its multiple hiring models which allow simplified hiring.

It is currently working closely with many corporate startups, MSMEs, and large enterprises.

"Rekrut will now open the floodgate of career opportunities for upGrad learners. Hence, we are thrilled to announce the onboarding of the team, a significant step in making upGrad a career powerhouse for professionals," upGrad Co-founders Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar, and Phalgun Kompalli, said in a joint statement.

"This move is integrally aligned with our company's vision of powering career success for every member of the global workforce as their trusted lifelong learning partner."

Post the acquisition, Rekrut India will continue to operate independently.

Given the massive potential of the recruitment sector, upGrad believes an independent business in this sector will provide strong non-linear growth opportunities for the edtech major.

"The upGrad-Rekrut synergy will disrupt the ecosystem and build an end-to-end supply chain of manpower, where Rekrut is the demand partner providing cutting-edge jobs and upGrad will supply the highly skilled, and future-ready talent," said Ajay Shah, Managing Director, Rekrut.

"We will be taking the learners' pipeline to the relevant industry stakeholders thereby helping them find the right talent with speed, while in parallel offering a wider choice of career transition for upGrad learners."

The Rekrut acquisition comes at a time when online education has started to gain greater acceptance with recruiters, thereby thawing the age-old offline-online perception divide when it came to hiring talent.

UpGrad said it drove over 1,000 career transitions in 2020, with an average salary hike of 44 per cent.

With Rekrut's expertise and core business being driving placements, the company hopes to boost its current volume by 10X and drive meaningful career outcomes for learners.