Apna.co is a recruitment startup for grey and blue-collar workers (1). The platform has raised 8 million USD in its Series A round of funding. Its existing investors, Lightspeed India and Sequoia Capital India, participated in the funding round.
The startup also observed new investors in its latest funding round, such as Greenoaks Capital and Rocketship VC.
Nirmit Parikh founded the Apna.co in December 2019. He created the startup as a vertical network for skilled professionals, including carpenters, field sales agents, painters, etc. Apna.co claims that it has over 1.2 million users on its platform.
Currently, the platform is available in five different cities across India. The company would use its latest funds to enter the new market, add additional verticles, and hire talent.
Apna.co Providing Professional Communities to Skilled Workers
Nirmit Parikh, Co-Founder and CEO of Apna.co stated that the startup’s mission is to connect people with new opportunities. He further noted that the startup aims to uplift workers who are the backbone of the Indian economy. Apna.co provides a platform so they can grow further in their career.
Nirmit has previously founded Cruxbot, which was later acquired by Kno and then by Intel. Before becoming a serial entrepreneur, he was working at Apple. One of the partners of Lightspeed India Partners Advisor, Vaibhav Agrawal, stated that Apna’s most powerful thing for me is its community. He added that he has seen people helping each other grow their business, learn something new, etc.
According to the platform, their community is going beyond a place for job opportunities. Their users engage with others to upskill themselves while also identifying their growth potential. Apna.co further added that in the previous 30 days, it had expedited over 1 million job interviews. The platform is now growing 3x times with each passing month.
According to the Harshjit Sethi, Principal at Sequoia Capital India stated that India has over 250 million blue and grey collar workers. Getting meaningful employment for this vertical is very challenging. He added that Apna.co had built a unique platform where users can come together in the community, which has been an unmet need until now.
