Marketplace for recruitment, Aasaanjobs raises $5M funding from Aspada, IDG, Inventus to create 'HR in the cloud'

Online marketplace for recruitment, Aasaanjobs announced today that it had raised $5 million in Series A round of funding in November 2015, led by Aspada Advisors with participation from existing investors. This was a follow-up of the seed round where the platform raised $1.5 million, led by IDG Ventures and Inventus Capital in January 2015. 

Story so far

Mumbai-based Aasaanjobs was founded in November 2014  by IIT Bombay alumni-Gaurav Toshniwal, Dinesh Goel and Kunal Jadhav who had earlier worked with The Boston Consulting Group, Deutche Bank and other companies. The startup is an online marketplace for entry-level and blue collar jobs. The company provides two-way matchmaking algorithm filters through its database to connect candidates whose profiles and job expectations meet client requirements. The company’s inception was inspired by the unregulated recruitment market in India where they saw a big market opportunity.

The team size currently stands at around 150 people. Aasaanjobs' considers its USP to be its technology-backed solutions, multilingual website and ability to reach out and engage with candidates from diverse backgrounds, including those still using feature phones. The platform has filters based on location and salary bracket to help job seekers take the right decision on whether or not to apply for a particular job.

It provides an assessment module for candidates that can be accessed through both mobile and web platforms. It is also equipped with a feature that enables ‘selfie’ interviews via video, in addition to a chat feature, to increase the speed of the hiring process. Aasaanjobs has also created multiple apps for various stakeholders in the hiring process - an app each for job seekers, partners (manpower and training agencies) and employers who wish to shortlist candidates efficiently. Recruiters have several plans to choose from based on their specific requirements and can tap into Aasaanjobs verified database for their recruiting needs. They also offer temporary staffing services to take care of bulk hiring requirements in addition to individual and smaller requirements. 

Sector overview

It is expected that Indian companies will add more than 10 lakh employees to their payrolls and pay 10-30 per cent salary hikes for the right talent in 2016, states a recent report in DNA. TimesJobs.com COO Vivek Madhukar expects that the e-commerce and startup sector will add a significant number of jobs in 2016. Finance Minister, Arun Jaitely recently stated that as the Indian economy is growing at a rapid pace the only way to keep up with the demand in recruitments is for entrepreneurs to help the government create more jobs.

Monster.com, Naukri.com are among the most well known players in the recruiting space. Interesting startups in this sector include grey collar focused job marketplace, Babajob that secured $10 million funding from SEEK in April 2015, Hiree which was earlier MyNoticePeriod and had raised Rs 18 crores from IDG in early 2015. IIMJobs, HasJob.co, MeraJob and Super (positioned as 'Tinder for jobs') are other interesting players in this sector.

Then there are players like HackerRank and HackerEarth that are taking the approach of developing a community of engaged developers through hackathons and other events to form a talent pool for recruiters. Backed by Science Inc., SpringRole too operates in this space through a referral model.

Future plans

The team behind Aasaanjobs seeks to leverage India’s rich human resource pool by making recruitment easy for all parties involved. To achieve this, it has initiated the process of creating a digital identity for job seekers and has launched an outreach programme to attract skilled candidates. With this fresh inflow of funds, Aasaanjobs aims to become an 'HR in Cloud', expand to more geographies and guide job seekers through the different stages of an ascending career path and help them fulfil their skilling needs and get a job. Talking about the latest round of funding, Dinesh, CEO, Aasaanjobs said,

The company would use the funds to automate its online recruitment marketplace and expand to new cities. We will set up operations in Pune and Delhi in the first quarter and Bengaluru in the second quarter of 2016.

Highlighting the reasons behind choosing Aasaanjobs, Kartik Srivatsa, Co- founder and MD, Aspada Advisors said, “It will be exciting to see how the team manages to mould a 'workplace of the future' by leveraging technology. The unstructured nature of recruitment as a space means there is an opportunity for disruption.”

Website: www.aasaanjobs.com