Beyond Odds

About Beyond Odds

Beyond Odds Technologies Private Limited is a technology-driven platform focused on addressing the skills gap in India's workforce by recruiting, training, certifying, and deploying candidates for grey-collar jobs. The company was founded in September 2023 by Vivek Sinha, the former Chief Operating Officer of Unacademy. Sinha, an alumnus of the Indian School of Business, has prior experience with companies like OYO and Mobikwik. He launched Beyond Odds after stepping down from his role at Unacademy in August 2023.

The company targets nation-building sectors with significant workforce shortages, including healthcare, education, construction, and hospitality. Its business model involves connecting employers with a trained talent pool, ensuring candidates are job-ready through intensive, long-term technical training programs that include hands-on experience. Revenue is generated through fees collected from students for its courses, similar to other educational institutions. The platform's first major initiative is 'Emversity', a higher education brand that partners with universities to offer bachelor's degree programs and certification courses integrated with industry-relevant skills. These programs, such as those in allied health sciences, are designed with features like 'built-in income' modules, allowing students to start earning stipends after completing a portion of their course. Course fees range from ₹50,000 to ₹90,000 for 6-to-9-month certifications and around ₹4 lakh for three-year undergraduate programs.

In April 2024, Beyond Odds announced it had raised $11 million in a seed funding round, which was a mix of equity and debt. The round was led by Lightspeed and Matrix Partners India, with participation from InnoVen Capital and Alteria Capital. It also attracted a number of high-profile angel investors, including the founders of OYO, Unacademy, and upGrad. The capital is being used to launch physical 'Emversity' centers, with the first opening in Bengaluru in April 2024 and plans for seven more centers across cities like Hyderabad, Delhi, Nagpur, Kochi, and Ranchi.