India’s unicorn world is continuing to grow at an unabated pace as yet another startup has made an entry in the coveted club. But the latest entrant, blue collar job platform Apna, is bit special. Simply because Apna has earned the unique tag of being the fastest unicorn in India’s startup industry. It earned this rare title by raising $100 Mn in a fresh funding round at $1.1. Bn valuation.
The fresh round dubbed as the Series C round was led by VC giant Tiger Global. Owl Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Maverick Ventures, Insight Partners, Maverick Ventures and GSV ventures also participated in the funding round.
Following the fresh fund raise, Apna will use the latest capital infusion for ramping up its domestic presence as well as expand beyond Indian shores. The company has said that it will be mainly targeting U.S, Southeast Asia , Middle east and Africa for international expansion.
Founded in 2019, Apna has crossed the $1 Bn valuation in barely two years. By doing so, it has snatched the title of being the fast unicorn from Bhavish Aggarwal’s Ola electrics. Apna has also now become the 27th unicorn of 2021, a year that will probably go down as the unicorn year. India is now home to 68 unicorns. Although India is still far behind China and America in terms of number of unicorns, the year 2021 has proved to be an infection point for the Indian startup industry.
Apna, which aims to become the LinkedIn for India’s blue collar community, provides online communities for skilled professionals like painters, carpenters, delivery boys, sales agent so and so forth. The platform claims that to have served more than 16 Mn job seekers and facilitated 150K employers in hiring talents through its platform.
