upGrad Acquires Recruitment Firm Rekrut India; Forecasts a Massive Jump in Career Outcomes for Learners

upGrad, India’s largest online higher edtech has acquired Rekrut India, the recruitment and staffing solutions company. This 100% acquisition marks an unprecedented M&A in India, where an edtech company has acquired a recruitment firm.

The Mumbai-based Rekrut India provides solutions to build organisations' human capital through their deep sectoral expertise, an extensive network of 100+ recruiting experts, and pioneering products that are agile & adaptive given the complexities of hiring in today’s times. 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.

Driving ROI of education through career outcomes has been a core differentiator for the edtech major upGrad. Acquisition of Rekrut will turbocharge its career engine by opening up wider placement opportunities and propelling accessibility of upGrad learners to Rekrut’s hiring partners.

Talking about the acquisition, upGrad Co-founders Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar, and Phalgun Kompalli, in a joint statement, said, “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. 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, a 100% subsidiary of upGrad, will continue to operate independently, with Ajay Shah continuing as the Managing Director. Given the massive potential of the recruitment sector, which in itself is an INR 15,000 crore market, upGrad firmly believes an independent business in this sector will provide strong non-linear growth opportunities for the edtech major.

“Currently in the market we operate in, we don’t give jobs to people; we give people to jobs. This is predominantly due to the skill gap in India. 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. 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,” said, Ajay Shah, Managing Director, Rekrut.  

“Our M&A strategy is focused towards building a wider higher education and career ecosystem and Rekrut fits-in perfectly with its capabilities to drive tangible ROI for our learners. upGrad’s plans of 300% growth in its paid learner base and driving career outcomes for these 1.2 million learners by FY25, will be further accelerated with this strategic acquisition,” said Gaurav Kumar, President - Corporate Development, upGrad.

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. Prior to Rekrut, upGrad’s in-house career services team was reaching out to around 100-200 hiring partners in a year and drove over 1000 career transitions in 2020, with an average salary hike of 44%. With Rekrut’s expertise and core business being driving placements, upGrad is fairly confident to boost its current volume by 10X and drive meaningful career outcomes for learners, at scale, and with speed.

About upGrad:

upGrad is India’s largest online higher education company. Founded in early 2015, upGrad has impacted almost 1 million individuals globally, within a short span of 5 years.

upGrad provides online programs in the areas of Data Science, Technology, Management and Law to college students, working professionals and enterprises. These programs are designed and delivered in collaboration with top-notch universities like IIT Madras, IIIT Bangalore, MICA, BIMTECH, NMIMS Global Access, Jindal Global Law School, Duke CE, Deakin University, Liverpool John Moores University and others. With an 80% program completion rate, robust tech platform, outcome-based learning approach, industry-relevant curriculum, finest university credentials, strong mentorship, and steadfast placement support, upGrad has established its position as the leader in the Indian education system.

IIIT Bangalore and upGrad's PG Diploma in Data Science is India’s first-ever PG Diploma, with over 10,000 alumni & learner-base, to be recommended and validated by the NASSCOM and is aligned to Government approved National Occupational Standards (NOS). ​upGrad ranked​ as India's​ No.1​ startup,​ ​as per the LinkedIn​ ​Top​ ​Startups 2020 list. This is the third time in a row that upGrad has been featured​ ​in the​ top startup list by LinkedIn. ​The edtech major received the title of 'Best Education Brands' by Economic Times in 2020​ for the second time, post winning the same title in 2018. ​The brand made it to the​ prestigious​ GSV Global EdTech 50 List 2020. ​Owing to its world-class learning platform. upGrad won the 'Best Communication and Teaching Platform' in the Education Innovation Awards 2020 by Entrepreneur India​ as well as received the title of ‘Best Tech for Education’ by IAMAI in 2019.