Former Oyo and Unacademy senior executive Vivek Sinha recently unveiled his latest venture — Beyond Odds Technologies — with $11 million in seed funding. The funding round, a combination of equity and debt, was spearheaded by Matrix Partners India and Lightspeed.
Beyond Odds Technologies aims to bring about a change in the recruitment and training landscape for grey-collar jobs across various sectors, including healthcare, construction, education, and hospitality. Beyond Odds Technologies, Sinha said, was starting with healthcare in the first academic season because there is a massive shortage of skilled professionals, both domestically and globally.
“While the sector has a lot of player existing players, it remains largely unorganised. Today, India is seen as a ‘tablet destination’ not as a destination for high-quality talent, or, let’s say excellence, that is what we are trying to chain through this platform. There’s a lot of scope for an organised player to come and deliver value through training excellence. Once we have developed the model in healthcare, we will deploy capital in other sectors,” he said.
Sinha emphasised there is a lot of potential for investment in healthcare, construction, education, and hospitality sectors. “If we are believers of the fact that India is going to grow at 7-8% GDP in the coming decades, then most of that growth is coming from the services sector and core industries.”
Moreover, he explained that global demand for skilled professionals from India underscores the immense opportunities across these industries. Sinha said that by aligning talent with international requirements, there exists a tangible opportunity for wage arbitrage, providing candidates with access to lucrative prospects both domestically and abroad.
The company has prioritised sourcing top-tier talent globally, Sinha revealed, particularly from European countries and the GCC, to ensure the “highest quality training standards in India”. Additionally, efforts were directed towards forging strategic partnerships with employers, adopting an employer-first approach to ensure alignment between training programmes and industry requirements.
The company plans to channel resources into brand building and acquisitions, the founder and CEO of Beyond Odds Technologies said.
Beyond Odds Technologies recently launched the first centre in Bengaluru, and Sinha said he plans to introduce six more within the next 30 days. These additional centres will be in Hyderabad, Jaipur, Ranchi, Delhi NCR, and Kerala.
As the founder and CEO of Beyond Odds Technologies, Sinha outlined the strategic allocation of resources in the initial stages of the venture. Emphasising the importance of high-quality content, Sinha indicated significant investment and effort dedicated to this aspect.
The founder explained that the platform focuses on higher education, providing degrees and certifications integrated with university programmes. This unique approach, he explained, allows students to gain skill development alongside their degree studies.
In a parallel development, Neysa, an artificial intelligence (AI) cloud and platform-as-a-service startup, has secured $20 million in its seed funding round. Led by Matrix Partners India, Nexus Venture Partners, and NTTVC, this funding underscores Neysa’s potential in the burgeoning AI-cloud market.
Sharad Sanghi, Founder & CEO of Neysa, outlined the utilisation of funds primarily for expanding engineering and development resources, as well as deploying cloud platform infrastructure. Neysa’s innovative generative AI-cloud platform-as-a-service and observability solutions are poised to cater to both Indian and global markets.
Sanghi elaborated on Neysa’s revenue model, emphasising a subscription or consumption-based approach, with profitability expected as early as the second year of operations.
Watch the accompanying video for the entire conversation.