Beyond Odd Technologies raises $11 million funding led by VC firms Matrix Partners and Lightspeed

Beyond Odd Technologies which is founded by former OYO and Unacademy senior executive Vivek Sinha, has raised $11 million in seed funding led by venture capital (VC) firms Matrix Partners India and Lightspeed Venture Partners, the company said in a statement today, April 18.

In the funding round, other investors who participated include InnoVen Capital (a Temasek subsidiary) and Alteria Capital. 

Grey-collar training and recruitment platform Beyond Odds is also backed by angel investors like Ritesh Agarwal (founder, OYO), Gaurav Munjal (founder, Unacademy), Mayank Kumar (founder, upGrad), Ramakant Sharma (founder, Livspace), Abhishek Goyal (founder, Tracxn), Rohit MA (founder, CloudNine Hospitals), Sumer Juneja (managing partner, SoftBank), Puneet Kumar (managing director, Steadview Capital), and Abhinav Sinha (COO, OYO), as per a statement.

"To achieve India's goal of becoming a developed economy by 2047, harnessing our demographic dividend is essential. Emversity is dedicated to preparing India's youth for the workforce and fostering the growth of sunrise industries through scalable skilled manpower. With our longstanding acquaintance with Vivek, we commend his grasp of the issue and capacity to establish pioneering institutions," said Rajat Agarwal, MD at Matrix Partners India.

"Today, India experiences a unique situation where we have an expanding workforce supply but a talent and skills gap across industries. Beyond Odds recognises and aims to tackle these limitations of the current education system. By enabling vocational skills-based education among students in partnership with public and private partnerships, they're solving both the demand and supply problems in college education today," said Harsha Kumar, partner at Lightspeed.

Founded in August 2023 by Vivek Sinha, Beyond Odds is an employability-led, technology-enabled platform that recruits, trains, certifies, and deploys candidates for grey-collar job roles in nation-building industries like healthcare, education, construction, and hospitality. 

"Our first initiative, ‘Emversity,’ is a higher education brand that helps universities integrate their degrees with industry-relevant skills. Our courses also come with ‘built-in income’, so candidates do not have to wait for completion of their formal higher education to earn their first pay cheque. Other features of these courses include ‘work abroad integrated’ modules, and extensive placement assistance," said Sinha.

Emversity works with reputed universities to offer bachelor’s degree programs in the allied health sciences stream, such as medical laboratory technology, operation theatre technology, emergency medical technology, hospital administration, medical imaging technology, and dialysis technology.