Jobs platform Apna enters unicorn club

The latest entrant in the coveted unicorn list this year is the jobs platform, Apna. The start-up has raised $100 million, which was led by Tiger Global Management as part of its Series C round, according to a report in Mint. Earlier, it had raised $70 million in Series B funding from Insight Partners and Tiger Global. Apna’s valuation has  doubled with the current round. In June fundraise, the start-up was valued at $570 million. Owl Ventures, Insight Partners, Sequ-oia Capital India, Maverick Ventures and GSV Ventures were also among the investors in the new round. The start-up plans to use the funds to widen its reach across India. It will also use it for global expansion and to enter into the blue and grey collared job market through upskilling. The recruitment will be increased across product and engineering segments.

Apna was founded in June 2019 and in two years it has become one of the fastest Indian startups to achieve unicorn status. The list of unicorns constitutes start-ups like Ola Electric, InMobi’s Glance, business-to-business marketplace Udaan and Paytm Mall, which have reached $1 billion valuation in about two years of starting operations.

According to Apna’s founder and CEO Nirmit Parikh, “We have registered a 125-fold growth in our business and facilitated over 100 million interviews over the past 15 months. Over the last month alone, Apna facilitated over 18 million interviews, and we have been consistently showcasing strong performance…employment for the rising workforce is a large opportunity with almost 2.3 billion individuals falling under the category.”

It has over 16 million users at present, according to the company. More than 1,50,000 small and medium business (SMB) employers and enterprises are its customers.

Zomato, Bharti AXA, Urban Company, BYJU’S, PhonePe, Burger King, and Delhivery, among others are its enterprise customers.