BorderPlus, the cross-border workforce mobility startup launched by Upgrad's co-founder Mayank Kumar, has expanded its presence into the German market via its first acquisition of the healthcare recruitment firm Onea Care.
With this, the company aims to formalise Germany's fragmented healthcare recruitment sector by facilitating skilled talent from India through "transparent and trustworthy" routes.
“We realised that the (German) market has got many operators but a majority of dealings happen under the table, which leads to a lot of heartburn. The overall market is also extremely fragmented. There is a big shortage (of nursing staff) in Germany, where the average age is 47, and they are looking seriously and favourably at international markets to bring in talent,” Kumar told Moneycontrol.
Prior to the acquisition, Onea was sourcing talent from markets like Brazil, North Africa, Indonesia, Turkey, the Middle East, and Philippines. Now, the company will start positioning India as its primary market for sourcing candidates.
“It (the acquisition) also allows us to expand our sourcing to markets where Onea was operational in. We will now have multi-sourcing ability into Germany, which gives us more diversity and prevents over-indexing on the Indian market,” Kumar said.
The firm has also set aside as much as $10 million to acquire between five and ten companies over the next one or two years in Germany, India, and other destination markets.
To be sure, last month, BorderPlus raised $7 million in funding led by Owl Ventures to expand its presence globally. The round also saw participation from notable angel investors like Flipkart founder Binny Bansal, CaratLane founder Mithun Sacheti, Oyo founder Ritesh Agarwal, and Patni Group's Apoorva Patni, who is also the director of Currae Healthcare.
“The remaining capital will either be put in by the investors or the founder group ourselves. We may even consider doing an equity share swap to raise more capital,” Kumar said.
Starting with Germany, BorderPlus will later expand into the UK and other European markets before getting into the US and Canada. After establishing a presence in these geographies, the company will look to expand into markets like Japan, South Korea and the Middle East, added Ayush Mathur, co-founder of BorderPlus.
“We have started with healthcare, and we will eventually get into hospitality, teaching, retail, manufacturing, logistics, etc. So, we will cover the spectrum of blue-collar jobs,” said Mathur, who was formerly a senior leader at Oyo.
Kumar and Mathur had, in October last year, announced the launch of BorderPlus to help Indian blue-collar workers, starting with nurses and geriatric care professionals, find career opportunities in international markets, especially in Europe.
The company provides language training, skill development, visa assistance, and employment opportunities to workers. Its German finishing school spans seven months of training. The first month is online, while the remaining 25 weeks are offline.
For this, the firm has set up an offline centre currently operational in Pune and plans to launch more in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and New Delhi.
According to Kumar, BorderPlus’ growth in the near term will be driven by further acquisitions over the next six to nine months to boost its presence in India and the German market.
“Through these acquisitions, we also get access to talent from other markets. So, we will focus on one more geography for sourcing candidates other than India going forward,” he added.
The company will also introduce digital-first solutions to streamline hiring, improve language training, and ensure seamless integration for healthcare professionals.
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