India’s Quikr snaps up Hiree to grow its recruitment service

Indian classifieds startup Quikr has made an undisclosed acquisition to grow its recruitment business.

Tiger Global-backed Quikr, which has raised close to $350 million from investors to date, snapped up Hiree, a hiring startup focused on white-collar jobs with over 2,000 employer partners. The company said Hiree will merge with its own job seeker platform, QuikrJobs, taking the service to four million “active” job seekers and increasing its reach into technology and startup employers.

Quikr is much like a Craigslist for India in the mobile era in so much that it is designed to help users find all manner of information and deals in their area. It claims 30 million users across 1,000 locations in India, with more than three-quarters of its revenue coming from mobile. Among its services is a chat platform that lets buyers and sellers connect on mobile to share text and images without revealing their number

The company raised $150 million in its most recent funding round which closed in April 2015, and it has been busy with M&A since then. Earlier this year, it scooped up real estate platform CommonFloor, also backed by Tiger Global, in a notable consolidation deal reportedly worth $200 million, while it has made smaller acquisitions such as Hiree and beauty on-demand provider Salosa.

Hiree was founded by ex-Yahoo duo Manjunath Talwar and Abhijit Khasnis and initially named myNoticePeriod. It raised $3.3 million from IDG Ventures India and a number of angel investors, including a $3 million Series A round in January 2015. The company hasn’t raised since then, nearly 18 months ago, and it reportedly laid off 80 percent of its staff in April, which hints at the reasons behind this deal.

Updated 07/25 04:40 PDT to correct total funding for Hiree