Japanese firm Mynavi acquires Indian HR tech startup Awign

Awign and Mynavi founders

Japanese Mynavi Corporation has acquired gig-worker platform Awign in an all-cash deal in what the Bengaluru-based company described as the largest HR deal in India in 20 years.

While Mynavi will be the majority shareholder, Awign's founding team will continue to run the operations, the Indian firm said on April 26, as the gig economy booms in India.

“We are going to get much more autonomy as compared to what we had before. When you have a large number of investors, it's tough to steer the company in one particular direction. Across the years, we have been very myopic, and we have at times resorted to short term strategies in order to raise money,” Annanya Sarthak, founder and CEO of Awign, told Moneycontrol.

"Now with Mynavi coming on board, we move away from being just a series B startup. Mynavi will also help build a lot of governance and compliance internally, and we become a much more mature enterprise,” he said.

Founded by Annanya Sarthak, Gurpreet S Khurana, and Praveen Kumar Sah, Awign streamlines work processes, ensuring high-quality outputs, and managing costs effectively for enterprises in sectors such as retail, FMCG, automotive, education, manufacturing, construction and pharmaceuticals. The company provides gig worker management services to companies like Byju's, Unacademy and Dunzo.

Awign in 2022 raised $15 million in a Series B round co-led by Bertelsmann India Investments and Amicus Capital Partners, with Mynavi Corporation also contributing to the round.

According to Tracxn, the company has raised about $29 million from investors in about eight funding rounds since its incorporation in 2016.

The acquisition will also provide an exit to Awign's early backers, including Capria, Lumis, MSDF, Amicus Capital and Pankaj Bansal.

Mynavi Corporation is one of the largest HR companies in Japan, with offices in Japan, the US, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Poland, and India.

Awign’s win

According to Sarthak, the deal signifies the largest transaction in the HR industry in India over the past 20 years.

Moneycontrol, however, could not independently verify the claim, as Awign did not disclose the details on the deal size.

With new funds coming in, Awign will focus on hiring, branding and technology development.

“We are going to be spending on hiring the best of the talent in the country, whether it is in technology or sales, in the senior and mid management. We are looking to incorporate more experience into the company. We will also focus on building a large B2B brand by educating customers and enterprises on the future of work,” Sarthak said.

The company will also continue the focus on improving its technology to provide better services to both gig workers and enterprises, he added.

Khurana said the company would now have access to a larger set of global clients that Mynavi is catering to.

“We want to retain our operations in India and focus majorly on India. We don't want to go to Vietnam, Philippines or Indonesia and start acquiring workers there.

“We are solving India's under employment; we are solving the Indian environment and continue to do so across the next five years. But with Mynavi coming in we would be able to get a lot of global customers whose operations are there in India,” Khurana said.

With this acquisition, Mynavi plans to enter the India market to take on Indian staffing companies and continue to create its presence across Asia.

“It doesn't make sense to just bring our Japanese product into the Indian market because we need a lot of other investments and understanding. My idea was to find a good set of promoters who have the same vision,” Hidekazu Ito, Managing Director of Mynavi Solutions India, a subsidiary of Mynavi Corporation, told Moneycontrol.

Ito added that with Awign, Mynavi would be able to better understand issues facing the Indian workforce including unemployment, salary gap and skill gap.