Vivek Sinha Launches Platform For Grey-Collar Workforce Training & Recruitment
Former OYO and Unacademy senior executive Vivek Sinha announced the launch of his new venture, ‘Beyond Odds Technologies’, with a seed investment of $11 million led by Matrix Partners India and Lightspeed, to build an employability-led training, certification, and recruitment platform for grey collared workforce. Other investors participating in the round include InnoVen Capital (a Temasek subsidiary) and Alteria Capital. The company is also backed by reputed 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).
The company 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 at scale and with high standards through programmes that include ‘hands-on’ training with industry partners. In addition to tech-enabled training, it will also open physical centres to help create a ‘job-ready’ talent pool.
The company’s higher education brand, ‘Emversity’, is launching its first centre in Bangalore on 20 April, followed by six other centres this quarter in cities including Hyderabad, Delhi, Nagpur, Kochi, and Ranchi. In partnership with top-rated universities, these centres will facilitate bachelor's degrees as well as certification courses. In the current academic cycle, Emversity will offer courses like UG Programmes in Emergency & Trauma Care Technology, Anaesthesia & Operation Theatre Technology, Medical Laboratory Technology, Hospital Administration, and Certification Programmes in Phlebotomy, Nursing Assistant, and Dialysis Technology. The state-of-the-art campuses are equipped with smart classrooms, laboratories, and virtual reality simulation.
For their first cohort, Emversity has tied up with several leading healthcare institutions, such as Fortis Hospitals, Core Diagnostics, etc., to offer programmes that are tailored to meet the skill requirements of these institutions, and the same institutions will also be the recruiting partners for full-time jobs as well as internships for Emversity’s students.
Outlining his broader vision, Founder & CEO Vivek Sinha said, “Our 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.”
Talking about the sectoral focus, Sinha added: “In the current academic year, we will be focusing on offering undergraduate courses in allied health sciences. The sector is facing an acute shortage of 7 lakh skilled workers. Globally, the healthcare sector will see a shortage of 1 crore skilled workers by 2030”.
Commenting on the investment, Rajat Agarwal, Managing Director at Matrix Partners India said “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. We extend our best wishes to the Emversity team for their journey ahead.”
Harsha Kumar, Partner at Lightspeed said “Today, India experiences a unique situation where we have an expanding workforce supply but a talent and skills gap across industries. Beyond Odds recognises and aims to tackle these limitations of the current education system. By enabling vocational skills-based education among students in partnership with public and private partnerships, they're solving both the demand and supply problems in college education today.”
