Monster.com raises Rs 137.5 cr from Mohandas Pai and Akash Bhanshali

Online recruitment firm Monster.com, a Quess company, announced that it has raised Rs 137.5 crore in a funding round led by prominent industry leaders – Akash Bhanshali (Volrado Venture Partners) and Mohandas Pai (Meridian Investments) with participation from Quess.

Post the funding round, the company is valued at close to $100 million. The current close has been done at Rs 112.5 crore with an option built-in to expand the round to Rs 137.5 crore.

The funds raised will be utilised for enhanced investments on product development & marketing in India, SEA and Middle East markets. This investment will help Monster.com evolve from a Job-board into a Talent Platform delivering full stack experience for both candidates and companies.

Sekhar Garisa, CEO – Monster.com, APAC & ME said, “We are very excited about the market opportunity in talent acquisition as people become the most important currency for every business. The last year has been incredible for the company, achieving very healthy growth across all metrics. We have an exciting product and business road map in line with our view on how hiring will evolve in the next few years.”

In 2018, Quess Corp acquired Monster.com’s businesses in India, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, UAE and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as a strategic investment to strengthen its HR services portfolio by establishing end-to-end offerings across the Employee Lifecycle Management space. Quess in turn offered Monster the opportunity to enhance its capability by building and implementing technology platforms to gain edge over competition.

“Monster.com is poised to redefine the jobs market by building tech workflows that puts the candidate at the center of the universe of innovation and possibilities. The next 2 years will see a huge increase in available jobs, thanks to high economic growth, and job seekers will find a high quality platform to plan their careers here. As employers also prepare for a new decade and an employee-first mindset, the platform will help them create a differentiated experience and build deeper relationships with their teams from day one. Meridian Investments is proud to partner with Monster.com in this exciting and important vertical,” said Mohandas Pai.

Monster.com today has over 60 million active users in India. The business, which also has a presence in SEA and Middle East markets, has launched several product innovations over the last three years to improve the experience of recruiters as well as job seekers. The company said its consistent efforts in improving platform experience has helped it achieve significant growth across key business metrics like sales (60% growth YOY), customer retention (70% growth YOY) & active user base (170 % growth YOY) etc.

“When Quess acquired Monster for an investment of Rs 145 crore, we embarked on a ‘Digital First’ journey with the objective of creating long term value for our shareholders and clients. This investment represents the validation of progress that has been made by the team and the capital infused will accelerate the transformation towards building Monster into a category defining company,” said Ajit Isaac, Executive Chairman, Quess Corp.