Belong.Education, a HR Tech startup, has recently announced the acquisition of InternIn, a Pune-based Intern Hiring platform for an undisclosed amount, in a cash and stock deal.
Post the acquisition, InternIn’s founder, Harshal Fuse is stepping down from the CEO’s role and will be moving on and starting his investment journey in search of the next big idea. Some of the core team members will join Belong. The company is also looking to hire more than 100 people across its product, engineering and sales team by March 2023.
Founded in 2020 by Harshal Fuse, with the goal of enabling students and professionals to connect to companies, InternIn is India’s second-largest internship portal, connecting students & professionals with companies, developing a unified platform for corporate engagement. The platform serves thousands of organizations and colleges worldwide to help students connect with businesses and at the same time helps students prepare for internships across many sectors. Through its recruitment portal, InternIn connects internship seekers and job-seekers from all over the globe, across various industries.
InternIn helps students to get meaningful internships in their desired company and has more than one million student assets on its platform, receiving 3.5 million monthly traffic from across India. The startup claims to provide students and job seekers from Tier-II cities in India with a common platform to connect with startups for internships.
Commenting on the acquisition, Founder & CEO of InternIn, Harshal Fuse, said:
“InternIn was launched to revolutionize the intern hiring experience for startups through a high-quality product built around convenience and choice. InternIn has been on a high-growth journey over the last year thanks to our core team and continuous product innovation. The success of our venture has stoked the entrepreneur in us and we are now moving on in search of the next big idea.”
Harshal further added:
“We have been closely following Belong’s journey and admired their operational expertise and how they have scaled their business pan-India. When we learnt that they were looking at strategic acquisitions for growth, we believed it was the ideal time to pass on the reins to the experienced team at Belong and become a part of their rapid-scale story.”
The company had been especially helpful for students who graduated in times of crisis amidst the pandemic to find a headway into the professional world. As a resource center for internships, it has partnered with several universities, including IITs & IIMS.
With this acquisition, Belong’s mission is to bring bias-free employability to ‘Bharat’s’ talent by integrating a robust AI-driven algorithm to accelerate opportunities for Tier-II & tier-III India.
Belong Education, co-founded by Apoorv Bamba and Vidushi Malhotra, is enabling bias-free hiring for graduate talent by building a first-of-its-kind skills passport for Bharat. The platform has placed 3000+ learners through skill-first recruitment across 10 countries in the last 18 months.
Speaking on the partnership, Co-founders of Belong Education, Apoorv Bamba & Vidushi Malhotra, said:
“This acquisition would bring us closer to our mission of bias-free and skill-first based approach in the hiring space. It will enable each learner to unlock a career based on their skills and not be limited by redundant tags especially existing in Tier 2-3 India. With this acquisition, InternIn will merge and operate under the name of Belong Education.”
Currently, Belong Education is powering finishing schools across 30+ campuses along with becoming the last mile employability engine for leading EdTech players such as SimpliLearn, HeroVired, AlmaBetter, EduClass and others through its employer-led capstone platform. It has become one of the largest industry integration platforms for learning providers with more than 500 employers hiring through its ‘Belong Score’ Early Talent program.
