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Quikr in talks to buy blue-collar job portal Babajob

Written by : TNM Staff

Online classified portal Quikr seems to be on an acquisition spree. After acquiring home services startup Zimmber for $10 million earlier this month, Economic Times reports that it is now in talks to acquire blue-collar job search portal Babajob.

Buying Babajob will give Quikr a strong play in the Indian blue-collar job market. And if this acquisition goes through, it will be Quikr’s 11th acquisition in the last two and a half years.

Sources have told ET that the acquisition will give Quikr access to smaller cities where Babajob is popular.

Founded in 2007, Babajob lists blue-collar service-ased jobs like BPO executives, delivery executives, drivers, etc. It is present in over 20 cities and claims to have over seven million registered job seekers on its platform and over five lakh employers scouting for talent.  

It operates an interactive voice response-based recruitment service that helps users sign up and search for jobs. The app and the website are available in several vernacular languages.

Babajob last got funding in April 2016 where it raised $10 million in a round lef by an Australian-based online employment marketplace Seek.

As per the ET report, Quikr’s jobs vertical QuikrJobs receives five million application every month with a 50% increase in user base.

And while Quikr’s losses widened to Rs 534 crore in FY16 from Rs 446 crore the year before, QuikrJobs broke even at the end of FY17.

Quikr has been strengthening its position across verticals like home services, jobs and real estate.

Apart from Zimmber, it acquired CommonFloor, Realty Compass, Indian Realty Exchange, Grabhouse, Stepni, ZapLuk, Salosa, StayGold and Hiree.

Since inception, Quikr has raised around $350 million from investors like Kinnevik, Tiger Global Management, Matrix Partners India and Warburg Pincus. And as per the ET report, it was last valued at around $1.4 billion.

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