Apna Turns Unicorn after $100 mn Fundraise Led by Tiger Global

Apna, the professional network for grey and blue collar workers, has turned a unicorn after raising fresh funds of about $100 million in series C funding led by Tiger Global.

The round also witnessed participation from Owl Ventures, Insight Partners, Sequoia Capital India, Maverick Ventures and GSV Ventures. With this round, Apna has gained a total valuation of $1.1 billion. The company has grown 125x over the past 15 months and is currently conducting 18 million interviews every month.

The company intends to use the funding to further reinforce its presence in existing 28 cities and expand pan-India by the end of 2021. 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 US, South East Asia, and Middle East and Africa starting early next year.

Nirmit Parikh, Founder and CEO, Apna says, “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.”

As an "undercover" blue collar worker, Parikh worked as a shop floor employee, electrician, foreman, cashier, and other gigs before setting up Apna to cater to this category. His thought process was that one cannot build a platform to cater to this section of the workforce sitting in relative luxury.

Griffin Schroeder, Partner, Tiger Global says, “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.”

Most of the recognition and use of the app has happened through "strong word-of-mouth" recommendations, said Parikh. The firm has built the platform to reflect the language of a particular region along with English.

Parikh believes English is an aspirational language for the workforce logging in to Apna, and hence a mixed lexicon works better for its users. Associating with Owl Ventures, the largest venture capital firm focused on education technology, will help bolster Apna’s global ambitions in the skilling space.

Amit Patel, Managing Director, Owl Ventures states, “We believe that Apna has the potential to fundamentally shift how companies approach hiring skilled professionals and how these individuals approach networking and upskilling...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."

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