Aspiring Minds, an India-based job skills credentialing service, has acquired the country’s largest online and mobile internship platform, LetsIntern.com, for an undisclosed amount.
LetsIntern.com, founded in 2010, has a network of four million students, and has helped over 22,000 organisations including Amazon, Uber and Reliance hire interns. It will continue to operate under the same brand.
With operations in China, India, the Middle East, the US and the Philippines, Aspiring Minds CEO Himanshu Aggarwal said he hopes to expand the site’s traffic audience “to every college and university student across the world” .
The company also plans to merge its online jobs skills test AMCAT with the site in order to address what Aggarwal said is a global skills gap.
“Internships expose you to the job as well as give you exposure to working in a corporate environment”
“As industry has evolved; most of the education ecosystem has not evolved with it and we see that a lot in India, we see that in China and we actually see the same in the United States.”
“Internships expose you to the job as well as give you exposure to working in a corporate environment, having a manager and following orders,” he added. “I think they’re essential to solving the employability problem.”
Expanding value added services provided to employers using the site including screening applicants and streamlining the search process is also among priorities.
“A lot of the big bang employers get too many applicants,” said Aggarwal. “We’ll help match applicants’ interests with internship opportunities. It’s just doing better matching for both sides.”
The acquisition is part of a multi-million dollar investment plan into the internship space. Alongside the deal, the company has also launched a $2m edtech investment fund.
“I think there’s a lot more effort that should be done in providing technology to upskill people, make them job ready,” said Aggarwal. “This could be for people where the job market has shifted and it could be good for people who are getting into the job market and need to figure out what they want.”
Founded in 2008, Aspiring Minds has partnerships to offer AMCAT credentials to users on MOOC platform edX, LinkedIn and job search platform Monster.
Last year it also acquired mobile software development company Mizcoin.
