Former OYO and Unacademy senior executive Vivek Sinha on Thursday announced the launch of his new venture Beyond Odds Technologies with $11 million seed funding led by Matrix Partners India and Lightspeed. Employability-led training, certification, and recruitment platform for grey-collared workforce, Beyond Odds Technologies received capital from other investors including InnoVen Capital (a Temasek subsidiary) and Alteria Capital.
Prominent angel investors including Ritesh Agarwal (Founder, OYO), Gaurav Munjal (Founder, Unacademy), Mayank Kumar (Founder, Upgrad), Ramakant Sharma (Founder, Livspace), Abhishek Goyal (Founder, Tracxn), Rohit MA (Founder, CloudNine Hospitals), Sumer Juneja (Managing Partner, SoftBank), Puneet Kumar (Managing Director, Steadview Capital), and Abhinav Sinha (COO, OYO) also invested in the round.
Speaking on the launch, Sinha said the platform will address the shortages in skilled workforce in both domestic and global markets by creating high-quality supply from India.
“Our first initiative, ‘Emversity,’ is a higher education brand that helps universities integrate their degrees with industry-relevant skills. Our courses also come with ‘built-in income’, so candidates do not have to wait for completion of their formal higher education to earn their first pay cheque. Other features of these courses include ‘work abroad integrated’ modules, and extensive placement assistance,” said Sinha.
The company said it aims to solve for the shortage of skilled labour-force in key nation-building sectors such as healthcare, education, hospitality, and construction. The platform will train candidates and open physical centres to help create a ‘job-ready’ talent pool.
Beyond Odds Technologies said its higher education brand Emversity will launch its first centre in Bengaluru on April 20, followed by six other centres this quarter in cities including Hyderabad, Delhi, Nagpur, Kochi, and Ranchi.
In partnership with different universities, these centres will enable Bachelor’s degrees as well as certification courses in emergency & trauma care technology, anaesthesia & operation theatre technology, medical laboratory technology, hospital administration, and certification programmes in phlebotomy, nursing assistant, and dialysis technology.
“To achieve India’s goal of becoming a developed economy by 2047, harnessing our demographic dividend is essential. Emversity is dedicated to preparing India’s youth for the workforce and fostering the growth of sunrise industries through scalable skilled manpower. With our longstanding acquaintance with Vivek, we commend his grasp of the issue and capacity to establish pioneering institutions,” said Rajat Agarwal, Managing Director, Matrix Partners India.