Upskilling platform AlmaBetter has raised a seed round of $2.7 million from Kalaari Capital and over 15 angel investors and founders of marquee technology companies, including Vidit Aatrey, CEO, Meesho; Sanjeev Kumar, CTO, Meesho; Rajesh Yabaji, CEO, Blackbuck; Varun Alagh, CEO, Mamaearth; and Rahul Dalmia, Early backer in Polygon Technology, among others.
According to the statement, with the fundraise, the brand plans to expand its offerings to cater to college students, in addition to strengthening the existing offerings for graduates and working professionals. In addition, the company plans to introduce job-guaranteed courses in product engineering, UI/UX among other high-growth domains.
Furthermore, founded by IIT Kharagpur and IIT Delhi alumnus, Shivam Dutta, Vikash Srivastava, Ravi Kumar Gupta, Arshyan Ahsan and Alok Anand in 2020, claims to offer flagship programmes to help learners launch their careers in domains such as data science, software development and blockchain. AlmaBetter aims to upskill 60,000 learners by the end of March 2023.
“Every year, India produces 1.5 million engineers but more than 80% are unemployable. The situation is far worse for STEM graduates with a meagre 5-7% placement rate. On the other hand, the industry struggles to find tech talent as new-age tech jobs continue to grow at a staggering CAGR of 25%. This clearly reflects the inefficiency of our current system in delivering industry-relevant education,” Dutta said.
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