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 jobsamid 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 a job to feed their family. This is especially in India.
Apna is an App that Helps blue-collar workers and grey-collar workers to Find Jobs Under These Hard Times. It raised $70 million dollars from Insight partners and tiger global at an 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.
The startup, whose name is inspired by a 2019 Bollywood song, at its core is solving the network gap issue for workers. “People born in a privileged family go 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 earnings in these hard times. This app was launched before the 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 it for those who want to find jobs. It works like Linkedin but in a different manner. Users enter their name, skills and some usual information to generate a virtual business card that is sent to potential employers.
*Nitin Parikh’s 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 another 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, of 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 its steep growth trajectory, scale up its operations, and improve access to opportunities for India’s workforce.”
Nitin Parikh
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 asUber,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.
*Apna Speciality*
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.
The Apna app launched about 16 months ago has now raised $90 million. It has now 10 millions+ users and it provides many jobs such as Carpenter, salon worker, and delivery men, and 100000+workers go burger king to amazon.com.
Apna also offers training and it is the plus point of the Apna app that is different from other job-providing apps. The app provides small courses such as conversational English and other things. Its working is epic. It is hiring candidates with the correct employers and providing them with interview training. It gives a certificate and that is very much effective in a good job.
Thanks to Nitin Parikh and Apna who helps in the employment of India.
