Upskilling platform, AlmaBetter raises $2.7 million from Kalaari Capital, others
AlmaBetter, a leading upskilling platform, has raised a seed round of $2.7 million from Kalaari Capital and 15+ renowned 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 (Early backer in Polygon Technology) among others.
Founded by IIT Kharagpur and IIT Delhi alumnus, Shivam Dutta, Vikash Srivastava, Ravi Kumar Gupta, Arshyan Ahsan and Alok Anand in 2020, AlmaBetter offers flagship programs to help learners launch their careers in high-growth domains such as data science, software development and blockchain. With over 16,000 learners already enrolled, AlmaBetter aims to upskill 60,000 learners by the end of March 2023. The company is recognized for its affordable yet outcome-oriented courses.
With this fundraise, the brand will expand its offerings to cater to college students, in addition to strengthening the existing offerings for graduates and working professionals. AlmaBetter also plans to introduce job-guaranteed courses in product engineering, UI/UX among other high-growth domains.
“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, at AlmaBetter, are laser focussed on solving this by providing an affordable yet outcome-oriented tech upskilling platform for the Indian youth. Leveraging AI for personalized learning experiences and minimizing the operational footprint has enabled us to provide quality education and job outcomes.” remarked Shivam Dutta, CEO and co-founder, AlmaBetter.
Kiran Vasireddy, Partner at Kalaari Capital, says, “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.”
AlmaBetter has built a strong learning ecosystem with a massive community of 300k+ high-growth career aspirants, fuelled by a network of 1000+ industry experts helping them achieve their goals. It has also 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. AlmaBetter offers a unique pay-after-placement model linking the success of the company to the success of its learners.
Till date, AlmaBetter has ensured a record placement rate of 100% across its placement programs with 1300+ alumni working for top brands such as Flipkart, JP Morgan, Dream11, Zomato, Accenture among others.