As AI automates parts of the workforce, Emversityan Indian workforce-training startup, is building talent pipelines for roles it sees as irreplaceable with AI, and has raised $30 million in a new round to expand job-ready training in the world’s most popular market.

The all-equity Series A round was led by Premji Invest, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Z47, the Bengaluru-based startup announced on Thursday. The fund valued Emversity at around $120 million post-money, sources confirmed to TechCrunch, up from around $60 million in the April 2025 pre-Series A round. The total fund now stands at $46 million.

India is grappling with a widening skills gap, with graduates often entering the workforce without job-ready skills even as key service sectors struggle to hire trained staff. In health care, the Indian government says the country has about 4.3 million registered nursing personnel and 5,253 nursing institutions producing approximately 387,000 nurses annually, but continues to flag a shortage. Hospitality, too, faces a 55% to 60% demand-supply gap for workers, according to industry estimates.

Emversity is trying to bridge that gap by integrating owner-designed training programs with the university curriculum and running skill centers affiliated with the Indian government’s National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) for short-term certifications and placements.

The two-year-old startup partners with 23 universities and colleges on more than 40 campuses and focuses on “grey-collar” roles — positions that require hands-on training and credentialing — including nurses, physiotherapists, and medical lab technicians, as well as hospitality roles such as guest relations and food and beverage service.

Emversity has trained about 4,500 students so far and placed 800 candidates so far, founder and CEO Vivek Sinha (pictured above) said in an interview.

Sinha, who previously served as chief operating officer of Indian edtech startup Unacademy for more than three years before starting Emversity in 2023, told TechCrunch that he came up with the idea while working on test preparation courses for entry-level government jobs. He noted that applicants include engineers, MBAs, and even PhDs.

“I started talking to these students,” he said. “Some of them paid for private colleges and spent 16 to 18 years to get the degrees.”

Sinha said the gap has widened in recent years and may widen as automation and new workplace tools change what employers expect from entry-level workers, while demand remains strong in credentialed roles like health care, where hands-on training and staffing ratios are still important.

“AI can cut down on a nurse’s administrative work, such as filing patient details or electronic medical records,” Sinha said. “But AI can’t replace a nurse if you need one in an ICU for every two beds.”

Emversity has partnered with employers such as Fortis Healthcare, Apollo Hospitals, Aster, KIMS, IHCL (Taj Hotels), and Lemon Tree Hotels to co-design role-specific training modules, which help universities embed their degree programs. The startup does not charge employers, instead earning revenue through fees paid to partner institutions and through short-term certification programs run by its NSDC-affiliated skill centers.

The startup operates with gross margins of about 80% and keeps customer acquisition costs below 10% of revenue by relying mostly on organic channels rather than performance marketing, Sinha said.

He added that the startup offers a career counseling platform for high school students that generated more than 350,000 inquiries and accounted for more than 20% of revenue last year.

With the new funding, Emversity plans to expand its footprint to more than 200 locations in the next two years and deepen its focus on healthcare and hospitality, while entering new industries such as engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) and manufacturing. The startup is already in advanced discussions with one of India’s leading EPC companies to design and launch role-specific programs this year, and plans to begin manufacturing-oriented training next year, Sinha said.

To deliver consistent results across campuses, Emversity combines owner-led curriculum design with hands-on training infrastructure, including simulation labs for clinical roles such as nursing and emergency.

Last year, Emversity’s revenue was almost evenly split between university-embedded training programs and short-term certification courses run by its own skill centers, Sinha said.

While Emversity is currently building talent pipelines for domestic employers, Sinha said the startup sees an opportunity to eventually serve international demand as well, particularly in healthcare, as aging populations in markets like Japan and Germany seek skilled workers. However, he did not reveal the exact timeline for taking care of the global demand.

Emversity has about 700 employees, including 200 to 250 trainers deployed throughout its campus network.