Apna raises $70 million to help remove unemployment in India in these hard times
By: Marketing Minds Knowledge
Tags: Marketing Minds Knowledge, Apna, Jobs, Funding, Employment

Apna raises $70 million to help remove unemployment in India in these hard times

Indian cities are home to hundreds of millions of low-skilled workers who hail from villages in search of work. Many of them have lost their jobs amid the coronavirus pandemic that has slowed several economic activities in the world’s second-largest internet market.

There are many people in many countries who do not have any degree, do not even have money but want to do job for feed his family. This is especially in India.

Apna, an App that Helps blue-collar workers and grey collar workers to Find Jobs Under These Hard Time.

It raised $70 million dollars from Insight partners and tiger global at evaluation of $570 million.

The investors like Sequoia capital India, Greenoaks Capital, Lightship India and Rocketship VC participated in the B round, which brings Apna's to-date raise to over $90 million. The capital will help with technology improvements, talent acquisition and expansion to the U.S. and Southeast Asia, the Bangalore-based startup announced Wednesday.

Apna-raises-$70-million-to-help-remove-unemployment-in-India

Apna-raises-$70-million-to-help-remove-unemployment-in-India

The startup, whose name is inspired from a 2019 Bollywood song, at its core is solving the network gap issue for workers. “People born in a privileged family goes to the top school, top universities and makes acquaintance with influential people. Nirmit Parikh, founder and chief executive of Apna, in an interview with TechCrunch.

Apna is building a scalable networking infrastructure, something that doesn’t currently exist in the market, so that these workers can connect to the right employers and secure jobs. “Apna’s focus on digitizing the process of job discovery, application and employer candidate interaction has the potential to revolutionize the hiring process,” said Griffin Schroeder, a partner at Tiger Global, in a statement.

India is one of those countries which have been severely affected by Covid-19 and due to this, India's economy has also fallen drastically and employees and poor people lost their job and daily earning in this hard times. This app was launched before Pandemic and it has increased 50 times in the last 12 months thanks to unpredicted demand from e-commerce and health care.

Former Apple Inc. Nitin Parikh built this and launched for those who want to find jobs. It is work like Linkedin but in different manner. Users enter their name, skills and some usual information to generate virtual business card that is sent to potential employers.

*Nitin Parikh thoughts on Apna*

"Earning money in this time is very hard and we help millions to get jobs, Parikh said in a phone interview." Every job has a positive effect by helping put food and other facility " It is also said by Parikh.

Apna has built the “market leading platform for India’s workforce to establish digital professional identity, network, access skills training, and find high quality jobs,” said Nikhil Sachdev, managing director, Insight Partners, in a statement.

“Employers are engaging with Apna at a rapid pace to help find high quality talent with low friction which is leading to best in class customer satisfaction scores. We believe that our investment will enable Apna to continue their steep growth trajectory, scale up their operations, and improve access to opportunities for India’s workforce.”

The startup plans to deploy the fresh capital to scale across India and eventually take the app to international markets, said Parikh. Apna, which has recently seen high-profile individuals from firms such as Uber, BCG and Swiggy join the firm, is also actively hiring for several tech roles in the South Asian market.

Apna has built the infrastructure and brand awareness in the market that it can launch in a new city within two days and drive over 10,000 interviews there in less than two days, it said.

“Our first goal is to restart India’s economy in the next couple of months and do whatever we can to help,” said Parikh, who was part of the iPhone product-operations team at Apple.

In the app, users connect with each other, help leads, and share tips to improve their work. The app also gives people the opportunity to improve themselves, practice in interview performances and qualify for more jobs. The startup said it is building skill modules like masterclasses, achievements or work-based skills, and also enabling peer-to-peer learning through vertical communities. We plan to start career counseling and resume function building.

Apna app that launched about 16 months ago has now raised $90 millions. It have now 10 millions+ users and it provides many jobs such as Carpenter, salon workers, delivery man and 100000+ workers goes burger king to amazon.com.

It is now available in 15 cities in mix language like English and local language.

Apna also offers training and it is plus point of Apna app that is different from other job providing apps. The app provides small-courses such as in conversational English and other things. Its working is epic. Its hiring by candidates with the correct employers and providing them interview training. It gives certificate and that is very much effect in good job.

Thanks to Nitin Parikh and Apna who helps in employment of India.