Quikr Shifts Base to Bangalore to Tap Available Technology Talent Pool

Quikr, the classifieds portal, said on Wednesday that it was relocating its headquarters to Bangalore from Mumbai to expand its technology team and grow its footprint.

The founder and CEO, Pranay Chulet, said that the relocation to Bangalore would help grow their technology and product team faster, a move that would have taken 18-24 months in Mumbai, the financial capital.

The six-year-old company is a part of the South African media conglomerate Naspers. The transition is expected to happen over the next six months. Quikr will, however, retain 600 of its 800 Mumbai employees in the city. The move to Bangalore would help it ramp up its staff strength from 150 to 600 members, with a significant addition to the technology team.

The web-company joins a long list of players who have migrated to the tech and start-up hub from other parts of the country.

Bangalore has welcomed many other technology companies making the transition to tap into its substantial software talent pool. The Garden City has benefitted from the start-up culture too. With its expanding plug and play capabilities, the software capital offers better business infrastructure.

Other firms finding a business home in the city are - online booking firm Ola and FreeCharge, an online mobile recharge player. January 2015 will see Instamojo, a payment start-up, move operations to Bangalore, whose cofounder and CEO Sampad Swain admitted that the choice to go with Bangalore was prompted by the ready availability of engineers from older generation platform companies like Akamai and Yahoo! Instamojo aims to grow its engineering team from 10 to 50 in the next six to 12 months.

"Talent from other cities are averse to move to Mumbai due to cost of living and quality of life," said Kunal Shah, co-founder of FreeCharge.

Ola moved in mid-2012 and has seen its base also become its biggest market in the country.

Quikr's Chulet said that the move was growth oriented and should not to be seen as a cost consolidation effort. This year the company has raised over Rs 900 crore from a list of investors that includes Tiger Global, Kinnevik, Matrix Partners India, Omidyar Network, Nokia Growth Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Warburg Pincus and eBay Inc.

Market sources say that salaries in Bangalore are higher by 20-40% for top engineering talent. The new breed of start-ups has to compete with international players with deep pockets for suitable talent.