Acquihiring rises as talent becomes real differentiator

As Indian startups and late-stage mature companies grow at a breakneck speed powered by bulked up balance sheets and foreign capital, acquihire—an acquisition of the product along with the talent—is picking up pace.In the last one year, over a dozen fast-growing tech startups across sectors such as edtech, fintech, medtech and ecommerce, which received new impetus from the pandemic due to a rise in online consumption of services, have been on an acquihiring spree not only to fill a market gap but also add to their existing talent pool, HR heads, startup founders and investment bankers told ET.The likes of Byju’s, Infoedge, Infra.Market, Dvara KGFS, BitClass, DataWeave, HealthifyMe, Instamojo, Lenskart, and Saveo Healthtech are among those who have acquihired to gain access to high quality talent that can also drive their business expansion.Last month, Infoedge, the parent company of Naukri.com and an investor in Zomato and Policybazaar, acquihired DoSelect, a data-driven skill assessment platform for hiring and skilling. Dvara KGFS, an NBFC operating in remote rural areas of India, acquihired TransactNow digital platform; edtech startup BitClass has acquihired Chase, a Bengaluru-based exploration and learning digital platform designed for millennials; DataWeave, a digital ecommerce analytics platform acquihired Sparrosense, an AI video analytics SaaS platform; and health and fitness app HealthifyMe acquihired Under45, a venture that was powering vaccination slot alerts on the popular messaging app Telegram.Earlier in the year, payment provider to small and medium enterprises, Instamojo, acquihired Bengaluru-based virtual theatre and vernacular content platform Showman; eyewear startup Lenskart acquihired Hyderabad-based delivery startup DailyJoy; and Saveo Healthtech Pvt Ltd, which operates a business-to-business ecommerce platform focused on pharmacies, acquihired Gurgaon-based retail startup ShuttrStores."Acquihiring helps in bringing in the right talent pool to create quality products and services along with driving growth,” said Pravin Prakash, chief people officer, Byjus's. “All our acquihires have seamlessly contributed towards building strong tech and product teams as we continue to innovate and build offerings,” he added. The edtech unicorn has been on an acquisition spree, having bought about a dozen companies in the last couple of years, including the likes of Great Learning, Toppr, Aakash Educational Services, WhiteHat Jr, and smaller ones like HashLearn, Scholr, and LabInApp. However, the company, which has spent more than $2 billion in acquiring complementary businesses in the last six months alone, refused to specify the names of its acquihires.Examples of acquihire are galore in a market where some companies are growing rapidly and may not have the bandwidth to hire alongside their new forays especially when there is a huge shortage of talent, said experts.“The quest to grow rapidly is giving currency to this trend as you get the product as well as the team to run it,” said Amit Nawka, partner-deals and startups leader at PWC India. “Acquihires usually come with a lock-in such as clawback or upfront payment for the talent for a specified period— usually two or three years.” The team size is usually under 50 members. It’s a win-win for all.Infoedge India’s CFO Chintan Thakkar said: “While companies like ours gets to fill the business gaps quickly with an entire team coming on board along with the product, they are able to leverage on the network, the pool of capital and the infrastructure that we have built to further grow the business”.Acquihire also shortens the time period in which companies are able to build a capability.“It makes sense for fast growing companies such as ours. We find value in doing so and integrating those businesses well into the existing funnel to build a stronger organisation,” said Aaditya Sharda, founder, Infra.Market, a construction solutions startup, which recently acquired Equiphunt.“It allows you to bring in talent with an entrepreneurial mind set,” said Tushar Vashisht, co-founder and CEO, Healthifyme.Investors too are encouraging this trend when finding tech talent is challenging. “Acquihiring a talented team that has worked well together and has built an interesting IP on either the SaaS or Consumer Internet or AI/Big Data side can be a quick way to enhance product and scale engineering team strength,” said Klaas Oskam, managing director and India head, DC Advisory, a global investment bank.

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