New-age cos aim to start up recruitment again | Economic Times

With the second wave of Covid-19 having tapered off, a host of startups are looking to grow headcount. Many are looking to set up new verticals, expand territory and invest in rapid growth seen over the past months.New-age companies such as HomeLane, NoBroker, CashKaro, Meesho, slice, Droom, Clovia and Cashfree are aggressively ramping up technology and product teams, with a majority of hiring to be lateral. In demand will be front- and back-end developers, data analysts and operations managers, while roles in marketing, growth, supply chain and customer service are also up for grabs.NoBroker is looking to hire 500 people in the next six months for its technology, product, data science and customer service teams. “Our revenue doubled in the past year and we grew heavily in terms of numbers of customers and properties,” said Amit Agarwal, cofounder of the Bengaluru-based startup. “With the second wave of Covid ending, we have seen a jump in customer interactions. In the next six months, we will see pent-up demand in our favour.”HomeLane, another Bengaluru-based startup, is looking to grow its team size by 800, focusing on increasing diversity and enabling women to rejoin the workforce. This increase in hiring is driven by a shift in consumer behaviour, such as a rise in time spent at home, increasing the need for home improvement services. Customers are looking for more organised players in the home interiors market, said cofounder Tanuj Choudhry.84938239 While hiring will be predominantly in tech and product functions, HomeLane is also looking to ramp up its sales, customer service, supply chain, marketing and interior design teams.While Meesho intends to onboard about 150 new employees for its technology team over the next year and a half, CashKaro will recruit about 75 people across technology, assisted ecommerce, influencer marketing, data analysis and design verticals.“One of our major hiring projects will be building the team for our new fintech vertical,” said Swati Bhargava, cofounder, CashKaro and EarnKaro. The company is also looking to fill up some senior positions, such as data and product heads, among others.Fintech firm Cashfree is looking to hire about 100 employees over the next six months, across roles in marketing, growth, engineering, product design and software architecture.International Expansion“Our bulk disbursal product, Payouts, surged over 200% in FY21, compared to FY20. We are also actively looking at expansion into international markets,” said Sapna Sukumar, HR vice-president at Cashfree.Slice is looking to hire about 300 employees for its product, analytics, design and technology teams. “We plan to achieve a GTV (gross transactions value) run rate of $1 billion in FY22. There are also plans to introduce some products that will transform and elevate the whole fintech space for millennials and GenZ,” Rajan Bajaj, founder of slice, told ET.Droom is also looking to hire 100-odd employees for its product, engineering, loan and insurance, last-mile delivery and inspection services teams. “We are looking forward to international hiring as we are aggressively planning to continue our expansion in South East Asian countries,” said founder Sandeep Aggarwal.Others looking to increase their tech and product teams in coming months include Clovia, BharatPe and RateGain, which are collectively planning to hire 200-odd people.