TeamLease Services, one of the top staffing companies in India, has raised Rs 100 crore in private equity funding to fuel the vocational education expansion of the company.
The current round of private capital was raised from ICICI Venture, along with existing investor, Gaja Capital Partners. In 2009, Gaja Capital Partners had invested $5.38 million in the company for a 16.77 per cent stake. The current round of valuation for the deal is not known.
The capital raised will be deployed for the vocational education initiative – a rollout of IIJT centres and national satellite delivery capabilities, building a corporate training business, acquiring a footprint in new domains more suitable for students who want to join directly after Standard X and implementing the TeamLease University project.
Focused on the organised temporary staffing market since 2003, TeamLease Services entered the vocational education segment by acquiring the Indian Institute of Job Training (IIJT) in 2010. As part of the deal, TeamLease had bought out the majority stake held by the US-based PE fund Tiger Capital in IIJT. Tiger Global Management LLC acquired 25 per cent stake in New Delhi-based IIJT Computer Education Ltd for $6 million (Rs 246.88 million) in 2007.
IIJT operates over 150 centres that deliver classroom and satellite training in five domains – finance & accounting, IT infrastructure, sales & marketing, retail and English/soft skills. The company has also started work on the TeamLease University that will offer associate degree programmes in the same domains and will start operations later this year, after regulatory and legislative approvals. The company is also actively engaged with various state governments through Public Private Partnerships (PPP).
Vishakha Mulye, managing director and CEO of ICICI Venture, said, “The education and staffing sector in India is poised for an exciting future as there is clear recognition within the government, as well as in the private sector, about the need to address gaps in the people supply chain. There’s need for up-skilling of workforce, demand for quality training and so on, thanks to the current growth trajectory of India.”
However, there have been other PE investments in this space. In 2009, VIA Human Resource Solution Pvt Ltd raised funding from Ojas Venture Partners while Ikya Human Capital Solutions Pvt Ltd raised $8.06 million from India Equity Partners Fund I in two tranches.
