Allied healthcare skill-based training and higher-education platform Emversity, on April 24 announced the successful close of a $5 million Pre-Series A round. The round was led by Z47 and Lightspeed, with participation from Alteria Capital and Innoven Capital. Under the ‘Emversity School of Allied Health Sciences’, students train for roles such as nurses, therapists, caregivers, OT technicians, lab technicians, paramedics and other allied-health professionals.
The company has also launched Travel & Hospitality keeping in line with its mission of solving skill-gap across multiple critical industries. The newly launched ‘Emversity School of Hospitality’ has partnered with two of the world’s largest hotel chains to offer skill-based training in rooms, F&B service, and culinary at nine campuses starting this year.
The funding comes on the back of a breakout first year for Emversity in which it expanded its footprint to 36 campuses across 18 Indian states establishing a strong foundation in healthcare skilling while forging deep Industry, University and Student partnerships. The company is on track to end the current financial year with 75+ campuses.
Founded by seasoned operator Vivek Sinha, former COO of Unacademy, Emversity bridges the skilled-workforce gap in nation-building industries by embedding work-integrated, technology-driven training into degree programs at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Its unique model tackles what Sinha calls the “three-pronged problem” in the higher-education-to-workforce pipeline: capacity shortage, inaccessibility due to prohibitive fees and misaligned curriculum. “Millions of roles in healthcare, hospitality and construction lie vacant, while one-third of graduates remain unemployed,” Sinha explains. “Our employer-sponsored stipend model solves accessibility; industry co-designed curriculum ensure relevance; and our Centres of Excellence expand capacity.”
On growth ambitions, he added, “In a sector full of broken promises, quality and outcomes are our biggest differentiators. We stay obsessed with best-in-class training and employment results; scale will follow.”
Commenting on the investment, Harsha Kumar, Partner at Lightspeed said “Vivek and his team are bridging a systemic gap between education and employment by aligning training infrastructure with real industry demand, creating a more job ready workforce for critical sectors. What excites me the most is the non-linear impact Emversity can unlock by connecting global demand with the talent pipeline that they are developing.”
Rajat Agarwal, Managing Director at Z47, led the investment, alongside Chandrasekhar Venugopal, Principal at Z47. Chandrasekhar commented, “Rajat and I are privileged to partner with Vivek & the team at Emversity as they take on this hard, but critical problem facing the country. From the first meeting, Vivek’s insight on fixing the education-employment gap through a job relevant pedagogy stood out. In under a year, he’s taken Emversity from this insight to national scale, with real outcomes and smart unit economics. At Z47 we are thrilled to go deeper on this journey with Vivek as Emversity scales in size and impact.”