Upskilling platform AlmaBetter has raised $2.7 million in a seed funding round led by venture capital firm Kalaari Capital.
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 among others, also participated in the funding round.
The Bengaluru-based startup said it will use the fresh funds to expand its offerings to cater to college students and strengthen the existing offerings for graduates and working professionals. It also plans to launch job-oriented courses in product engineering, UI/UX, and other high-growth domains.
Founded by IIT Kharagpur and IIT Delhi graduates Shivam Dutta, Vikash Srivastava, Ravi Kumar Gupta, Arshyan Ahsan, and Alok Anand in 2020, AlmaBetter offers courses that help learners launch their careers in high-growth domains such as data science, software development, and blockchain. The startup aims to upskill 60,000 learners by March 2023. It claims to have enrolled more than 16,000 learners to date.
Commenting on the development, Shivam Dutta, CEO & Co-founder of AlmaBetter, said,
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. We are laser-focused on solving this by providing an affordable yet outcome-oriented tech upskilling platform for the Indian youth.
AlmaBetter is building a platform to educate and prepare students for modern-day careers by combining the best aspects of MOOCs (massive open online courses), vocational schools, apprenticeships, and boot camps. The upskilling platform has joined hands with 500+ MNCs and high-growth startups across the country as hiring partners, helping students acquire jobs in the most sought-after domains in the tech space.
Kiran Vasireddy, Partner at Kalaari Capital, said,
India is blessed with immense youth potential but the lack of industry-relevant education is posing serious threats to their employability. This calls for innovative and affordable upskilling platforms which deliver quality learning outcomes at scale. AlmaBetter is doing just that, and we are excited to partner with them in their mission to solve this long-standing problem.
In April this year, AlmaBetter partnered with Polygon, the leading Ethereum scaling blockchain company, to offer programs in blockchain and Web3 development.
