Aspiring Minds acquires online internship platform LetsIntern.com, to make job training and search easy

Aspiring Minds, a job skills credentialing and matching platform on Monday announced the acquisition of LetsIntern.com, an online and mobile internship platform for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition is a part of Aspiring Minds' multi-million dollar investment plan in the internship space.

The company was founded in 2008 by brother duo Himanshu and Varun Aggarwal and currently consists of over 500 people with operations in the US, China, India, Middle East, Philippines, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Aspiring Minds enables job seekers to evaluate their job skills, earn industry-recognised credentials and find appropriate career opportunities. It also helps companies improve their quality and efficiency of hiring. Currently, Aspiring Minds claims to be associated with more than 3,500 corporations.

Related read: Aspiring Minds, the company behind AMCAT, launches a million-dollar seed fund for startups in education and hiring space

According to a press release from the company, their vision is to create a merit-driven talent ecosystem to enable matching of efficient job skills by crafting credible and intelligent assessments. The release states that the company's flagship product AMCAT is the world’s most widely-taken employability test and is helping over two million candidates find the right jobs every year.

On the acquisition, the press release states, “This strategic acquisition gives Aspiring Minds immediate access to the fast growing and very important space. LetsIntern.com has tremendous synergy with the company’s flagship product AMCAT, which is used by young and early job seekers.”

Commenting on the acquisition, Himanshu, CEO, Aspiring Minds, said, “LetsIntern.com gives us a reliable presence in the internship space and in continuing our efforts to add more value to students, colleges, and corporations. We expect to combine the reach of both AMCAT and Letsintern.com platforms and achieve significant synergies.”

LetsIntern, which enables students to connect with organisations for internships, was founded in 2010 by Rishabh Gupta, Mayank Batheja and Pranay Swarup. Rishabh, CEO, said,

We were able to instantly synergise with Aspiring Minds’ vision of revolutionising the education and employment ecosystem in the world. We are confident that LetsIntern.com’s experience in the internship space and established network of students and more than 22,000 organisations will add value in the business that Aspiring Minds has made.

Pranay, COO of Letsintern.com, added “Letsintern was built with a vision to best connect students to their careers and the very next step in solving this complex problem is to be able to assess skill sets and suggest next steps.”

Going forward, Aspiring Minds will invest in LetsIntern.comto grow the platform to reach and engage with colleges and university students in India and abroad. As per the deal, the LetsIntern.com team will continue to lead the efforts of growing the Letsintern.com platform. This is Aspiring Minds’ second acquisition. Earlier this year, the company had acquired Mizcoin.

Sector overview and YourStory take

While the population of India is growing rapidly, finding qualified employees for different skillsets is a challenge for both startups and large scale corporations. The lack of easily available educational resources, and an outdated education system partly account for the current scenario. Most companies have an on-boarding process and train new recruits, but getting access to employees that have already gained some of these skills through industry-recognised platforms makes it easier for companies.

There are many startups and enterprises that provide live or virtual training to potential employees. Udacity recently launched Nanodegree, a programme to help people learn specific skills from expert instructors. Then there is Lynda.com, which was acquired by LinkedIn earlier this year. Closer home in India, DeZyre offers career updating skills training through live online workshops. Coming to ‘matching’ or job search, Monster.com and Naukri.com are big players in this space in India.

Aspiring Minds aims to cater to end-to-end services by providing job skills training as well as ‘matching’. Acquiring LetsIntern.com helps them tap into the youth of the country who are potentially their biggest market.

Website: www.aspiringminds.com