As artificial intelligence automates parts of the workforce, Emversity, an Indian workforce-training startup, is building talent pipelines for roles it sees AI cannot replace. The company has raised thirty million dollars in a new funding round to expand job-ready training in the world’s most populous market.
This all-equity Series A round was led by Premji Invest, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Z47. The funding values Emversity at around one hundred twenty million dollars post-money, up from about sixty million in its previous round last April. The startup’s total funding now stands at forty-six million dollars.
India has been grappling with a widening skills gap. Graduates often enter the workforce without job-ready skills even as key service sectors struggle to hire trained staff. In healthcare, the Indian government states the country has about 4.3 million registered nursing personnel and over five thousand nursing institutions producing roughly 387,000 nurses annually, yet recent reports continue to flag a shortage. The hospitality industry has also faced an estimated 55% to 60% demand-supply gap for workers.
Emversity is trying to bridge that gap by integrating employer-designed training programs into university curricula and running skill centers affiliated with the Indian government’s National Skill Development Corporation for short-term certifications and job placements.
The two-year-old startup has partnered with twenty-three universities and colleges across over forty campuses. It focuses on so-called grey-collar roles, which require hands-on training and credentialing. These positions include nurses, physiotherapists, and medical lab technicians, as well as hospitality roles such as guest relations and food and beverage service. Emversity has trained approximately 4,500 learners so far and placed 800 candidates to date.
Founder and CEO Vivek Sinha conceived the idea while working on test-preparation courses for entry-level government jobs. He noticed applicants included engineers, MBAs, and even PhDs. He started speaking to these learners, some of whom had paid fees to private colleges and spent 16 to 18 years earning their degrees.
Sinha stated the gap has widened in recent years and could grow further as automation and new workplace tools change employer expectations for entry-level hires. Demand remains strong in credentialed roles such as healthcare, where hands-on training and staffing ratios are critical. He explained that while AI can cut down administrative work for a nurse, such as filing patient details, AI cannot replace a nurse when you still need one in an ICU for every two beds.
Emversity works with employers including Fortis Healthcare, Apollo Hospitals, Aster, KIMS, IHCL, and Lemon Tree Hotels to co-design role-specific training modules. These are then embedded into university degree programs. The startup does not charge employers, instead earning revenue through fees paid by partner institutions and through its short-term certification programs.
The company operates with gross margins of about 80% and has kept customer acquisition costs below 10% of revenue by relying largely on organic channels. The startup also offers a career counseling platform for high school students, which generated more than 350,000 inquiries and accounted for over 20% of revenue last year.
With the new funding, Emversity plans to expand its footprint to more than two hundred locations over the next two years. It aims to deepen its focus on healthcare and hospitality while entering new industries such as engineering, procurement, construction, and manufacturing. The startup is in advanced discussions with a top Indian EPC company to design role-specific programs this year and plans to begin manufacturing-focused training next year.
To ensure consistent outcomes, Emversity combines employer-led curriculum design with hands-on training infrastructure, including simulation labs for clinical roles like nursing and emergency care. Last year, its revenue split roughly evenly between university-embedded programs and short-term certification courses.
While Emversity currently builds talent pipelines for domestic employers, the startup sees an opportunity to eventually serve international demand, particularly in healthcare as aging populations in markets like Japan and Germany seek trained workers. An exact timeline for global expansion was not disclosed. Emversity currently employs about seven hundred people, including two hundred to two hundred fifty trainers deployed across its campus network.