PeopleStrong Acquires B2B SaaS Referral Startup Grownout

HRTech startup PeopleStrong, has acquired the Gurugram-based B2B SaaS referral platform, Grownout for an undisclosed amount. With this development, PeopleStrong is looking to provide additions to its product range.

As claimed by the company in an official statement, this acquisition will make PeopleStrong’s SaaS HR technology – PeopleStrong Alt, the only global recruitment product from India with a comprehensive offering right from sourcing, match making to offer generation and onboarding – all powered by machine learning.

Vishal Saha, founding member and CTO, PeopleStrong said, “ Recruitment Tech is one of our key focus areas and Grownout technology will help us take it to the next level through AI-based matchmaking and social profiling.”

Grownout, established in 2014 by Sumit Gupta and Harsimran Walia, will now be a part of PeopleStrong Alt product suite. The company has been focussing on making the hiring process easy, quick and fun by revolutionising the way referrals are managed through machine learning.

“We started Grownout with the vision to revolutionise the world of recruitment. It’s been an exciting journey and we are looking forward to taking it to the next level as a part of PeopleStrong.” said Harsimran.

PeopleStrong has over 200 customers and it makes keen use of its mobile app and artificial intelligence, recruitment process outsourcing and human capital management.

This is the fourth strategic investment for the Gurugram-based startup, after Webpay, Summit HR’s Frontline business and IL&S (Wheebox). PeopleStrong also got the media corridors buzzed as it recently closed one of the largest investment transactions in APAC’s HR Tech space.

PeopleStrong currently has an order book of $78.65 Mn+ (INR 500 Cr+) and has been growing at a CAGR of 60% for over a decade. It is behind the creation of products such as HR Chatbot Jinie.

The HRTech company has been levelling its ground for formidable playing. Recently, it raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Zeta which is promoted Bhavin Turakhia. Also, Multiples has acquired a majority of its stakes for an undisclosed amount. After a flush of such funding and strategic acquisitions, PeopleStrong may have all the possibility of becoming the game changer player in the way HR operations take place in India.

Such a development is all the more pivotal in the light of the Indian HR industry which is estimated to be $6.29 Bn (INR 40,000 Cr). In the year 2017 alone, it was estimated that $2 Bn was invested in HR technology companies globally.

What will be interesting to follow, in the face of a rapidly developing HRTech industry, is that if PeopleStrong will come up with more such startup acquisitions in 2018 and in the light of the recent acquisition of Grownout, what operational effectiveness it will demonstrate.