apna Secures $100 Mn Series C Funding Led By Tiger Global At $1.1 Bn Valuation; Committed To Empowering The World’s Rising Workforce

* apna has grown 125x over past 15 months to become a Unicorn: today serving over 16 million users and 150k employers, and enabling 18 million monthly interviews

* The investment strengthens apna’s mission to empower the next billion users with access to employment, professional networking and upskilling

* apna plans to expedite product development, hire best in class talent in Engineering and Product and expand to new geographies

apna, India’s largest jobs platform & professional network for the rising workforce, has secured about $100 million in series C funding led by Tiger Global. The round also saw participation from Owl Ventures, Insight Partners, Sequoia Capital India, Maverick Ventures  and GSV Ventures. With this round, apna has attained a  total valuation of $1.1 billion. ‘Made in India, for the world’, apna  aims to go into overdrive to sustainably solve the immense challenge of unemployment, poverty and upskilling.

apna has grown 125x over the past 15 months and is currently conducting 18 million interviews each month. In the future the company plans to use the proceeds to further strengthen its presence in existing 28 cities and expand pan-India by the end of 2021 to help accelerate India’s economy. The team plans to double down on their edtech platform for skilling and invest in hiring exceptional talent and building world class engineering and product capabilities. apna plans to build a global enterprise by venturing into new markets such as the USA, South East Asia, and Middle East & Africa starting in 2022.

Sharing his views, Nirmit Parikh, Founder and CEO, apna, said, “apna has a deep social purpose, and is committed to discovery and creation of opportunities to enhance a billion livelihoods, across geographies. With the continued support of our partners, we aim to accelerate our journey of ‘solving for the world’.” 

HIGHLIGHTS

Users served: 16 million+ 

Employers served:  150,000+ 

Professional interviews in last 30 days: 18  million+ 

Active jobs: 5 million+

Job categories and vertical communities: 70+

Cities served: 28

apna’s job platform leverages a sophisticated algorithm that matches candidates with employers taking into account their skills, experience and preferences. The app  also comprises 70+ communities for skilled professionals like carpenters, painters, telecallers, field sales agents, delivery personnel and others. apna communities have enabled users to grow their professional networks, upskill through peer learning and find  gig opportunities. apna’s communities enabled 17 million peer to peer professional conversations in the past month.

In a short period, apna has become the preferred choice of employers to hire the right talent. Several of India’s leading companies, such as Zomato, Bharti AXA, Urban Company, BYJU’S, PhonePe, Burger King, Delhivery, Teamlease and G4S Global rely on apna to address their most urgent and critical hiring needs. apna has facilitated about 100 million interviews via the app in less than two years. 

Griffin Schroeder, Partner, Tiger Global, said, “Apna’s viral adoption is driven by a novel social and interactive approach to connecting employers with job seekers. We expect job seekers in search of meaningful connections and vetted opportunities to drive Apna’s continued explosive growth across India – and the world.” 

Partnering with Owl Ventures, the largest education technology VC in the world, will help bolster apna’s global ambitions in the skilling space. Amit Patel, Managing Director Owl Ventures, said, “We believe that apna has the potential to fundamentally shift how companies approach hiring skilled professionals and how these individuals approach networking and upskilling. The apna team is creating an innovative technology led solution that has already shown tremendous traction by facilitating close to 100 million interviews in approximately two years, and that is just the beginning. By incorporating learning and upskilling offerings to drive strong outcomes for its user communities, apna is building an end-to-end solution that has the potential to help individuals over the course of their career and not just in a single interaction. That repeated interaction and trust they are building on their platform can profoundly impact not just India but the global talent ecosystem."

Throughout the pandemic period, apna has supported business continuity by helping employers connect with and hire interested candidates in their vicinity. After taking concrete steps to accelerate India’s recovery, the company is committed to continue to solve employment and skills related problems for the world. apna has partnered with organizations such as, National Skill Development Corporation, UNICEF Yuwaah, Truecaller, Akzonobel, and the Ministry of Minority Affairs of India, in their endeavor to provide better skilling and job opportunities to candidates.

About apna

Founded in 2019, the apna.co is India’s largest jobs and professional networking platform dedicated to helping India’s rising workforce to unlock unique professional networking, and skilling opportunities.

Having secured more than $190 million from marquee investors such as Tiger Global, Owl Ventures, Insight Partners, Lightspeed India, Sequoia Capital India, Maverick Ventures, GSV Ventures, Greenoaks Capital and Rocketship.vc apna is on a mission to enable livelihoods for billions in India. With over 16 million users, present in 28 cities and counting, and over 150,000 employers that trust the platform - India has a new destination to discover relevant opportunities.

About Tiger Global Management:

Tiger Global Management, LLC is an investment firm that deploys capital globally. The firm's fundamentally oriented investments focus primarily on the global internet, software, financial technology, consumer and industrial sectors. The private equity strategy has a ten-year investment horizon and targets growth-oriented private companies. Such investments have included Spotify, Harry's, Warby Parker, Peloton, JD.com, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yandex, Mail.ru Group, Despegar, Ola and Flipkart. The public equity efforts emphasize deep due diligence on individual companies and long-term secular themes. Tiger Global was founded in 2001 and is based in New York with affiliate offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangalore and Melbourne.

About Owl Ventures

Owl Ventures is the largest venture capital fund in the world focused on the education technology market with over $1.3 billion in assets under management. The Silicon Valley based firm invests in the world's leading education technology companies across the education spectrum encompassing PreK-12, higher education and the future of work (career mobility/professional learning). Owl Ventures has deep domain expertise and leverages a global network of Limited Partners, investors, and strategic partners to help entrepreneurs scale their businesses into transformative category leading companies.