Apna- Find Your Next Job Easily with India leading Professional platform!

Overview

The Covid pandemic hit the common people severely since a lot of them were forced to leave their jobs and move to their homes during the lockdown curbs. And, we are not talking about hundreds or thousands of people here, the list includes over 250 million blue and grey-collar employees, and as the world is reviving from the post-effect of Covid, offering significant job opportunities to these common masses is one of the key concerns of the nation.

Therefore, Apna is professional networking and jobs platform that will help professionals connect with potential employers and land their jobs on one side, and to advertise job offerings by the employers. Founded by a serial entrepreneur and ex-Apple executive Nirmit Parikh in 2019 the start-up has its headquarters in Mumbai India, with its team of 300+ employees, and is in the process of adding another 250 employees shortly.

Currently, Apna is also being hailed as one of the fastest-growing Indian start-ups thatreached a valuation of $1.1 billion within just 22 months from its inception after a new fundraising round led by Tiger Global Management in Series C Round. Interesting. Right?

Presently, more than 2 million+ job seekers and more than 2 Lakh companies use Apna to find the right candidate and hire them. The list of employers includes bigger corporates & SMEs likeByju’s, Flipkart, Amazon, Big Basket, Swiggy, Telmore, etc. among others.Read the success story to find out about its Apna founders & the team, business & revenue model, funding raised, growth & challenges, and more ahead!

Apna –Slogan & Mission

The foundational idea behind the launch of Apna is loosely based on the movie Gully boy (2019) which addresses the issue of network gaps among the workers in society. Parikh states “A child from a well-off family attends the best school & best college, and has strong connections, whereas a child from an underprivileged family lives in a completely different world and could never have the same experience. Apna is on the primary mission to offer” the best recruitment across various services and help our clients with their prime talents.

Apna- How did it happen?

Long before starting a business like Apna, Nirmit Parikh had been obsessed with the idea of entrepreneurship during the period he was doing his engineering at the Institute of Technology at Nirma University in Ahmedabad. It is then only when he launched his first company, Incone Technologies, which helped in the automation of dam gates, that the idea hit him after the floods on the west coasts in the year 2007.

Later, he combinedhis company with his family-owned venture that helped to solve the problem of waterlogging or floods through artificial intelligence-based control systems that were focused on functions like flood forecasting and reservoir monitoring. It also gave him an idea to design value propositions and positioning around the business. At the age of 26, he had become a seasoned entrepreneur by building companies back to back.

After graduating from Stanford University, he worked with the mobile and electronics industry’s prominent firm Apple and used to supervise the product and tactics of the software platform. However, during this period he also got to spend a considerable time through regular visits to his family.. He also observed the unemployment issues and first-hand the difficulties to hire skillful workers at his family-owned production business.

While he had witnessed the issues related to the hiring of skilled workers, he also thought it was necessary to get a hold of the other side i.e. workers. For which, he secretly went for various jobs like blue-collar job holder, as an electrician, supervisor, and shop floor chap and tried to understand their problems. According to him, the problem seems easier, until one gets to taste the problem himself”. He also observed that pretty often people in India looked for solutions for their problems from the West and copy them, which proved to be a trigger ultimately helping Parikh to resolve a significant resolve on his hands.In his own words, “We keep on saying the bigger issues the world is facing, but somehow never feel that we are going to solve these problems”.

For naming this new start-up, he stated that it was Ranveer Kapoor starrer, Gully Boy popular song ‘Apna’ from ‘Apna time aayega (Our time will arrive!) and its dialogue “My dreams are not going to change as my reality is so, I would rather change my reality to achieve my dream.

Parikh spent most of the initial days for the Apna development nearby the slums of Mumbai,trying to understand user requirements, and making the freshest app version that is the 16^th design repetition. Apna got a few of its first users through word of mouth, while they used to visit the slums and chawls in Mumbai. Slowly, their burn rate for every transaction is getting better and more stable. Every individual transaction they do due to the network effect market goes down, which has helped in smooth functioning of the business. Our budgets have been the same as we had planned in,” Parikh states.

Apna-How does this work?

Apna is a digital recruitment application that helps employers to connect with the relevant job seekers as per their manpower requirements. Any job seeker may use the app to create a job profile with additional information such as his educational background, prior job experiences, and relevant skills so that he could apply for any relevant job, and schedule his interview to be hired by any employer on the Apna app. Alternatively, the job seekers may interact with each other, and share leads and suggestions for better career opportunities.

Similarly, employers and recruiters may create their profiles by using the Apna app to advertise job openings, communicate & interact with prospect candidates, arrange interviews and hire them directly and hire them without having to engage an outsourcing agency or any middlemen in between.

With a variety of advanced tools, the employers may get the relevant candidate with a click along with background referral checks also include a look at a candidate’s digital persona.With these, employers may determine whether a candidate will fit in and if he or she has the necessary abilities for a position.

Not only this, Apna boasts of its noteworthy clientele network with big names such as – Byju’s, Swiggy, Toppr, Flipkart, WhitehatJr, Amazon, Unacademy, BigBasket, Licious, and others. The Covid pandemic enhanced digital recruitments with an increase in job advertisements soon after the country moved towards normalcy from multiple illness waves. This has led to the tremendous success and popularity of Apna among its target audience.

The app is user-friendly, available in as many as 11 Indian languages and 70+ cities, and accessible as an Android and iOS app. Apna claims to conduct around 18 million interviews conducted every month with an established 70+ community network for professionals engaged in various fields from cooks to beauticians, and nannies to Security Personnel. It contains everything that job seekers may need, interact learn from one another, and explore prospects.

Apna – Founders and Team

Nirmit Parikh

Nirmit Parikh is the Founder & CEO of Apna, the leading professional networking platform for the working class of India. H completed his Bachelor of Technology in instrumentation as well as Control Engineering from Nirma Institute of technology in 2009and then became a serial entrepreneur. He worked as a Director of New Products at Intel before joining Apple, where he worked as a supervisor for the products & Strategy Department for almost two years till Sep 2018. In 2019, he quit his job at Apple Technologies to start Apna.

He founded Incone Technologies in the year 2009 itself and went on to launch another start-up called Cruxbot in 2013, which was later acquired by Kno Inc., and Intel Corporations later. According to him, “The reason for pursuing MBA was to find out more about the running network-based businesses, which later helped him to build Apna”.

Apart from Nirmit Parikh, the following are the key members of the Apna Team-

• Aryan Kenchin (Co-Founder)
• Mithun Madhusudan (Head of Product Communities)
• Priyank Mehta (Head of New Initiatives)
• Paresh Rajput (Head of Digital Marketing)
• Yuvraj Khemani (Vice President Finance)
• Devesh Gupta (Product Manager-Community)
• Nikhil Barge (Talent Manager)
• Parina Gandhi (Growth Product Manager)
• Preethi Hv (Senior Manager Talent Acquisition)

Apna – Business Model and Revenue Model

Apna runs on a simple B2B2C model. However, unlike other start-ups, it doesn’t plan to spend much on advertisements. Parikh explains “In the advertisement industry, once you get into it you may start doing things you certainly shouldn’t be doing.” Instead, the CEO  & Founder plans to make money through the business platform by charging recruiters and offering upskilling classes to required job seekers, which will be of course free of cost. Soon, Apna shall also have its premium version that will cater needs of individuals that need more help.

Apna Financials

Apna earns money through the technical support services provided to the employers and recruiters for their job postings and advertisements on the Apna platform, which is the primary source of revenue for the business. While Apna claims to be in a pre-revenue stage, it witnessed a 3.24 times surge in its operating revenue during the previous financial year. Its revenue grew to Rs 16.95 crore in FY21 from Rs 5.22 crore earned in FY20, according to the company’s annual financial statement filed with RoC.

To keep growing start-ups have to bear higher costs as compared to other businesses, and the same is the case with Apna. For FY21, the start-up witnessed an increase in operating expenses which ramped up to 9.22 times reaching 45.40 crores in FY21 from 4.92 crores spent in theFY20.These costs also included salaries & employee benefits costs which formed  57.15% of the total expenses, which has alone shot up to 9.90 times to 25.95 crores in FY21 from 2.62 crores in FY20.

Digital marketing has appeared as the second-largest business cost center for Apna for this financial year. The costs ramped up to 40 times reaching a total of Rs 14 crore in FY21 as compared to only Rs. 35 lakhs in FY20 since the growth of scale is a priority for the business. While Apna witnessed a profit of Rs. 30 lakhs in the previous financial year, the losses have expressively swelled for this year.

Accordingly, Apna lost a total of Rs. 28.26 crore during this FY21 with 4.4 times increase in its cash outflows amounting to Rs. 20.55 crore during the same period. In terms of its unit-level Apna had to spend Rs. 2.68 to make a rupee for operating revenue.

However, it is also to be noted that Apna has scaled up its business quickly and these financials reflect its trajectory, especially when the business is being claimed to be in the pre-revenue stage. Comparatively, the start-up is doing better than several growth-stage businesses and is slated to grow multi-fold in coming years including FY22.

Apna –Strategic Partnerships

Apna has entered collaborations and strategic partnerships with some prominent governmental and private organizations, which include the Ministry of Minority Affairs, the National Skill Development Corporation (NSIC), and UNICEF YuWaah, in order for the applicants to improve their skills and employment prospects. Not only these, but Apna has also partnered with as many as 2 Lakh+ prominent organizations who can use the platform to post jobs and hire candidates with relevant skills within two days.Byju’s, Unacademy, Flipkart, Zomato, Licious, Burger King, Dunzo, Bharti-AXA, Delhivery, Team lease, G4S Global, Shadowfax, etc., and the list goes on and on.

Apna – Fundings and Investors

To date, Apna has raised a total sum of $193.5M over five funding rounds. The latest round of funding came on Sep 15, 2021, from a Series C round, for a sum of $100m from six investors which includes names like  Tiger Global Management, GSV ventures, Owl ventures, Maverick Ventures, and Sequoia Capital, etc. This funding round made it one of the earliest start-ups to become India’s 27th unicorn of 2021- Startups valued at $1.1 billion in a record-breaking year for venture funding. Tiger Global Management and Insight Partners are the lead investors of Apna.

Here is a timeline of all funding rounds that have taken place to date-

• Seed Round took place on Jul 5, 2019, for a sum of $3M from Sequoia Capital India.
• Series A funding round took place on Sep1, 2020 for a sum of $8M from investors like LightSpeed India Partners &Sequoia Capital India.
• Series A funding round March 2, 2021, for 12.5 Green oaks Capital & Sequoia Capital India.
• Series B funding round Jun 16, 2021, for a sum of $70Mfrom investors like Insight Partners and Tiger Global Management.
• Series C funding took place on Sep 15, 2021, for a sum of $100M from six investors including Tiger Global Management

Apna –Growth & Challenges

India is home to more than 300 million blue-collar workers, and this number is expected to grow by 10% each year. This implies massive growth opportunities for start-ups like Apna which already has an edge in the sector due to its unique features. In less than 3 years from its inception, it has been tremendously successful in becoming the backbone of the Indian workforce with around 2Lakhs+ businesses connecting with the platform to hire top professional candidates in their field and probably one of the biggest marketplace jobs platforms and biggest in the country in its category.

This social start-up also successfully raised a sum of $70 million in a funding round led by Insight Partners and Tiger Global in June 2021 that ramped its valuation to $570 million and by Sep 2021, it reached crossed the $1 billion mark in the same year making it the 27th unicorn start-up of the year. Parikh stated in an interview “Valuations are directional markers of success and Apna doesn’t want to be distracted from its ultimate goals”. Clearly, combining a social cause with a robust business model has fostered a huge amount of investor trust and confidence.

From now on Apna is focusing on building an advanced platform with a focus on offering three-fold benefits i.e. a professional marketplace for jobs, a professional social networking platform, and an upskilling business, out of which each one is going to be an independent, multibillion-dollar company. Parikh firmly believes in the unique abilities of Apna, as he said in an interview given to Forbes India earlier” Apna is not any XYZ of India, it is the Apna of the world, it has grown north over 125 times in the previous year and the growth is growing every single month.” It also seems to be the reason why Owl ventures, one of the largest global VC firms focused on the education industry chose to invest in businesses like Apna and even plans to support the company’s skill tech expansion plans.

Apna – Key Competitors

• Just Jobs
• Talent now Solutions
• Multi Recruit
• Zippia
• Top Hire

Apna –Business Strategies

It is interesting to note how the Apna business achieved such a remarkable feat in a mere 22 months. In multiple instances, Parikh has explained how he got to witness the challenges faced during the hiring ofblue-collar workers through his family discussions. Similarly, through his undercover stint as a worker in his hometown of Ahmadabad, India to discover the challenges being faced by the blue-collar & grey-collar workers in society.

This helped Nirmit realize key issues that rule over the unorganized jobs sector including heavy reliance on resumes & referrals, limited incomes, casual referral networks for hiring, and the absence of a scalable tech infrastructure to connect jobseekers to employers. In reality, around 80% of the jobs were coming from their social connections leading to limited job opportunities. Further, most of the people were worried, lonely, and felt intimidated to use traditional platforms for seeking jobs so as to avoid interaction with professionals due to their lack of knowledge of the English language.

Therefore, he concluded that these workers needed more than just a job discovery platform. Satisfied with this revelation, he set out to build a digital platform that could enable user interaction and increase access to professional opportunities.

Key Business Strategies

• To ensure a rich user experience, Apna added smart features such as smooth interaction between the blue-collar workers and their employers.
• Instead of tedious resumes, Apna offers interactive virtual business cards to job seekers with their primary details.
• Instead of being a completely English language-oriented platform, Apna adopted
• Conversational languages like “some-English” or a blend of local languages and English, could prevent the job seeker from any kind of intimidation and offer an inclusive environment to all.
• Apna platform has also fostered certain vertical communities on its platform so as to make blue-collar and grey-collar workers feel welcome and cooperate with one another to meet their personal and professional goals.
• As Apna was being started, Parikh noted that one of the most common reasons for the failure of marketplace startups is the unpreparedness of their stakeholders. Parikh explains it with an example “For instance, if the Uber app was to be launched
• Across the globe without onboarding drivers for any particular location, if drivers were not yet available in a location, riders in that location would be frustrated. Therefore, rather than making Apna available country-wide all at once, Parikh decided to launch it city by city in order to ensure sufficient job opportunities & employers for job seekers in every city.

Thus, Apna instantly gained popularity among the common masses with thousands of daily active users. Unlike any traditional job discovery platforms that users would only use in certain instances such as while looking for a job, Apna’s community is now a significant platform for social connection and peer learning for the blue-collar workforce.

BharatPe- Future Plans

After establishing itself as the largest professional job search platform, the application is live in 70+ cities and is rapidly expanding to be available in more than 300 cities and 4000 towns by the end of the year. Parikh, CEO & founder, aims to make it a global platform rather than being stuck to the boundaries of the country. Apna is in the process of beta-testing in the United Arab Emirates and the United States and is anticipated to be launched by this year.

After raising generous funding of $100m, the start-up is in process of developing skill development courses and offering peer-to-peer learning through its vertical communities. It also intends to contain other advanced functions such as career counseling and resume-building for job seekers. In the words of Parikh “We are building a skill-tech platform for 96 percent of India’s workforce including the development of our own skilling content as when it comes to skill development there is a significant shortage of content.

Thus, Parikh has huge ambitions including extending Apna’s reach to billions of people worldwide and reducing global poverty. Despite having no revenue, the start-up has witnessed a 125x growth over the past year which makes it promising. Slowly Apna will soon start monetizing across the platform since it has primarily focused on acquiring customers and it has only run pilot projects to ensure the viability of revenue. According to Parikh “There is a long-term lens included to monetization in business. At present the business stands at 0.1 percent or 0.4 percent, and we wish to increase it slowly”