Upskilling unicorn Upgrad on Thursday said its subsidiary Rekrut has acquired Bengaluru-based recruitment and staffing platform, Wolves India for an undisclosed sum.
Founded in 2016, Wolves India specialises in placing tech talent across startups, along with mid and large-sized organisations in India and overseas.
The company claims to have closed over 5,000 placements in technology and product roles.
“While with Rekrut we saw our learners receiving high CTCs during FY22, the joining of Wolves India will give us an edge in the tech ecosystem. It shall foster wider employment opportunities for our learners in the form of highly paid tech roles and enhanced career acceleration,” said Mayank Kumar, co-founder and managing director, Upgrad.
Upgrad was founded in 2015 by Screwvala, Kumar and Phalgun Kompalli. In August last year, the company joined the coveted unicorn club with $1.2 billion valuation.
The professional skilling platform has been bullish on its acquisition strategy to grow its user base and adjacencies in other verticals including test-prep through the acquisition of The Gate Academy, recruitment and staffing platform Rekrut in 2020.
“Wolves India will continue to operate independently under the leadership of its Founder and Director Raghu S. Wolves’ passion lies in enabling the perfect matchmaking between corporates and the right set of talent through analytics, market research and innovative strategies,” said Ajay Shah, Managing Founder and Husain Tinwala, co-founder of Upgrad Rekrut.
Earlier this year, the edtech platform acquired data science institute Insofe for $33 million in a share swap deal.
The edtech industry, which boomed during Covid-19 as teaching moved online, has witnessed stress in view of the abatement of the pandemic and reopening of educational institutions.
A liquidity crunch in the startup ecosystem, shrinking valuations and rising costs are also forcing firms to focus on conserving costs.
In April, edtech unicorn Unacademy fired a tenth of its 6,000-strong workforce, adding to the firing of 325 part-time employees at the start of the year. And in May, online tutoring platform Vedantu laid off 200 employees.
In February, Mumbai-based startup Lido Learning shut shop after letting go 900-1,200 employees on a “virtual Zoom townhall”.
Between March and May, Whitehat Jr’s 800 employees had also offered to resign after the company announced a “back to work” drive.
Besides edtech, the broader startup ecosystem has also suffered large layoffs with companies like FrontRow, Meesho, CityMall, Mobile Premier League, Cars24, MFine, Furlenco and Trell firing employees over the past few months.
