Airblack, a Gurugram-based online makeup and beauty learning platform, has recently raised $5.2 million in a Series A funding round led by Elevation Capital and Info Edge Ventures.
The round also saw participation from Atelier Ventures, Better Capital, Ankur Nagpal (Founder and CEO, Teachable), Kunal Shah (Founder, CRED), Vidit Aatrey (Co-founder and CEO, Meesho), Sanjeev Barnwal (Co-founder and CTO, Meesho), Sujeet Kumar (Co-founder, Udaan), Utsav Somani (Partner, AngelList India), and Ashish Gupta (Managing Director, Helion Ventures).
Founded in 2019, Airblack is on a mission to help people convert their passion to a livelihood by providing them the best knowledge in a way that works. It envisions a world where it is easy and sustainable for millions of people to do what they truly love. With the belief that the next decade will be about internet-first creators and entrepreneurs, the startup aims to empower millions of such creators with high-quality courses and help them convert their passion into a sustainable profession.
Airblack currently helps people upskill and become micro-entrepreneurs in the beauty skilling market through ‘do-it-together (DIT) courses curated by experts and delivered live in a workshop format. The company said that since it entered the beauty segment last year, over 25,000 learners have attended these courses across more than 500 cities. It claimed that a majority of them are women who have since become freelancers, online creators, or home-salon owners.
Speaking about the company, Videt Jaiswal, Co-founder & CEO, Airblack, said,
“The Instagram and YouTube revolution has made people aware that there are hundreds of ways to earn a livelihood. Traditional EdTech is just the tip of the iceberg and has been limited to a few skills. We foresee 100 million plus people becoming digital creators and freelancers in India in the next five years. At Airblack, we are fuelling this economy by empowering people to learn a practical skill in a fraction of time and cost of traditional education and launch their livelihoods on the internet.”
The company plans to use the new proceeds to accelerate the expansion of Beauty Club, launch new clubs, and invest in product, engineering, and brand.
Vaas Bhaskar, Vice President, Elevation Capital, commented on the funding,
“The future of work is going to look very different for millennials and Gen-Z. A perfect storm of new aspirations, decline of old career choices and new opportunities are brewing. India is already home to the second-largest freelancer community in the world; and COVID has only accelerated this trend. We believe that Airblack is well placed to become the learning and enablement brand for millions of internet-first entrepreneurs in the coming decade.”
Airblack claims to conduct over 45,000 hours of live classes every month which are supplemented by take-home assignments.
Kitty Aggarwal, Partner at Info Edge Ventures, added, “Globally, people are increasingly becoming keen to stay independent and follow their passion, and it’s heartening to see Airblack empowering and skilling thousands of entrepreneurs and freelancers, mainly women.”
Airblack had previously raised $1.5 million in seed funding in April 2019 led by Elevation Capital.
