Angel investors pick up stake in CTO recruitment startup Purple Quarter
Angel investors Abhishek Goyal, founder of data analytics firm Tracxn, and former Flipkart executive Mekin Maheshwari have picked up an undisclosed equity stake in Purple Quarter, a startup which scouts for top technology executives.
Both Goyal and Maheshwari are on the company's board of advisors, a company spokesperson told TechCircle.
"Mekin has been instrumental in guiding us build the behavioural metrics aspect to tech search and Abhishek supports us as a strategic advisor," the spokesperson said.
"Mekin has been instrumental in guiding us build the behavioural metrics aspect to tech search and Abhishek supports us as a strategic advisor," the spokesperson said.
Founded last year by Deepak Singh Ahlawat, Bengaluru-based Purple Quarter helps tech-based firms recruit the right talent for positions such as chief technology officer and head of engineering.
Ahlawat also runs Anzy Careers, another recruitment platform for tech talent.
An Economic Times report quoted Ahlawat as saying that Purple Quarter has already completed the hiring process for four technology heads in the past eight months. In addition, it has mapped more than 200 top tech talents in the last four months.
Maheshwari, who served as chief people officer at Flipkart, had left the e-commerce firm in 2016. He currently runs Udhyam.org, a non-profit company which focuses on grassroots-level entrepreneurship.
He is an active angel investor and his portfolio firms include doctor consultation platform Docwise and m-commerce app Goodbox.
A former venture capital investor, Abhishek Goyal founded Tracxn along with Neha Singh in 2013. It offers startup-related data analytics and sector-focused analyses to venture capital and private equity firms, among others.
Tracxn is backed by Tata Sons chairman emeritus Ratan Tata, SAIF Partners, and Flipkart founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal. The company also runs a startup incubator, TracxnLabs.
Goyal has been an early investor in startups such as logistics firm Delhivery, fintech startup Indifi Technologies, used cars platform Zoomo and tour booking platform Travel Triangle.
Tracxn’s offerings compete with some products of The VCCircle Network, whose businesses include subscription data products and this subscription-led news website.
Deals in the space
A handful of startups such as HackerRank and AirCTO in India and Codelity and HireVue in the UK and US respectively operate in the broader tech talent recruitment space.
HackerRank, a technical recruiting platform for enterprises, had last month raised $30 million (Rs 192 crore) in a Series C funding round led by growth capital firm JMI Equity.
HackerRank offers a software-as-a-software (SaaS)-based recruitment platform to screen technical candidates by testing them on programming challenges.
AirCTO, a human- and artificial intelligence-powered recruitment platform that helps companies hire technical talent, had raised an undisclosed amount in angel investment from former Nokia director Francesco Cara last July.
On the international front, Codelity offers automated assessment tests and professional assessment services to help recruiters save time in recruiting software developers, while HireVue is an on-demand video interview platform.
Update: The story has been updated to revise the nature of the angel investors' involvement with the startup.
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