TeamLease Services, among the top staffing companies in India, on Tuesday announced that it had completed raising an equity fund of Rs 100 crore to fund the expansion of its vocational education programmes of the company.
This capital was raised from ICICI Venture, one of India’s leading alternative asset management companies, and an existing investor, Gaja Capital Partners.
TeamLease, focused on the organised temporary staffing market since 2003, had entered vocational education by acquiring the Indian Institute of Job Training (IIJT) in 2010. This capital will help complete the acquisition of IIJT. The staffing major has till now spent Rs 50 crore on IIJT. Meanwhile, a part of the money raised will go into acquiring another training company that is into the domains that TeamLease is not present in now.
“We are now looking at organic and inorganic growth. We are looking for a company which will complement us and help us expand into locations where we are not present in the training domain,” said Ashok Reddy, Managing Director of TeamLease Services. TeamLease is in now advanced stages of acquiring a firm.
Meanwhile, the plan for TeamLease University project in Gujarat could reach its logical conclusion once the Assembly passes a bill on the same. The university could see an investment of Rs 20-30 crore over the next two years.
IIJT operates over 150 centres to deliver classroom and satellite training across five domains: finance and accounting, IT Infrastructure, sales and marketing, retail and English/soft skills. The company has also begun 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 various Public-Private Partnerships. It runs the only PPP Employment Exchange.
