Staffing services provider CIEL HR Services is looking to raise $30 million (Rs 220 crore) in private equity funding. It is also looking to go public, with plans to file its DRHP with the market regulator SEBI in the first quarter of FY24, the company’s Executive Chairman K Pandiarajan said.
It recently concluded private placement of equity to raise Rs 17 crore and compulsory convertible debentures of Rs 6 crore.
This came on the sidelines of the company launching a solution focused on meeting the staffing needs of startups and MSMEs called CIEL Rapid.
CIEL's bet on this segment is on the back of the growth in these sectors where the Indian startup ecosystem has created 7.68 lakh jobs in the last six years, and MSMEs have created 11.1 crore jobs.
“This idea was developed keeping in mind that startups are constantly in need to hire talent quickly, but lack adequate resources to hand-pick the right candidates,” said Aditya Narayan Mishra, CIEL HR’s CEO.
CIEL’s Rapid Services have three divisions — Profile Sourcing, Interview Coordination and Final Select Follow-up — and startups and MSMEs can pick whichever service they want, or all of them, and pay accordingly.
This launch comes even as larger startups in India have seen layoffs and are in the middle of a funding winter.
But Pandiarajan believes that while some bigger startups are going through a rough time, some of the highly projected downsizing would be more than compensated by the additional companies coming in today.
Moreover, CEO Mishra believes growth in demand in Tier-2,3 and 4 locations is going to double in the next year. This, combined with the growth in the startup ecosystem augurs well for the company.
CIEL aims to reach at least 10 percent of the addressable market of SMEs and startups over the next few quarters with Rapid.
"We consider this as a major boost towards realising our plans of crossing Rs 1,000 crore turnover in FY23 out of our organic efforts," Pandiarajan added.
CIEL Rapid's focus will also be on helping rural SME startups.
“We see substantial interest in tier two, three and four locations where the tech-enabled startups or tech-first, startups are kind of coming up. They all have demand for good quality talent,” he said.
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