Quikr acquires Hiree to boost job listing

E-classified player Quikr has acquired Hiree, an online hiring platform, as part of its focus to tap the white collar job market. Hiree, which counts IT companies and start-ups among its customers, will be merged with Quikr's job vertical Quikr Jobs and will operate out of the latter's headquarters, Quikr said in a statement today.

The combined entity will create a recruitment platform that connects over four million active candidates with recruiters across the country. No financial details were disclosed. IDG Ventures India-backed Hiree has Ravi Gururaj as an advisor to the company. Formerly called myNoticePeriod, Hiree has Raghu Krishnananda (former Yahoo executive), Shamsunder Talreja (owner of JetSet Capital) and Prashant Kirtane (CTO and co-founder of travelmob.com) as its angel investors.

Quikr has been aggressively acquiring firms to expand its operations. Under Quikr Homes, it has acquired firms like Realty Exchange (IRX), realtycompass and CommonFloor in the last few months. It also made a strategic investment in A N Virtual Tech.

Under Quikr Services, it acquired beauty services company Salosa and subsequently, launched its own beauty services brand At HomeDiva.

Backed by investors like Tiger Global Management, Kinnevik, Warburg Pincus, Matrix Partners India, NVP and eBay, Quikr's classifieds platform is used by over 30 million unique users a month.

It has presence in 1,000 Indian cities and operates several classifieds businesses in the consumer to consumer (C2C) category, cars, education, homes, jobs and services. "We launched QuikrJobs with an aim to bridge the gap between Bharat and India for the recruitment industry. We have created a successful business model there and it is now time to level up," Quikr founder and CEO Pranay Chulet said.

Customers will now gain the benefits of Hiree's technology and massive scale of Quikr in parallel, Hiree founders Manjunath Talwar and Abhijit Khasnis (former Yahoo executives) said.

Quikr Jobs recently reached a milestone of over 10 lakh job-seeker profiles created through its missed call service alone.

The company also allows users to create profiles using desktops and mobile phones.

The enhanced product portfolio, coupled with Quikr's missed call service, will make a larger talent pool available to recruiters for the entry level, blue collar as well as white collar lateral hires, Quikr said.