Blue collar recruitment platform Vahan raises $10 Mn in Series B

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Blue collar recruitment platform Vahan.ai has raised $10 million in its Series B funding round led by Khosla Ventures. The round also saw participation from Y Combinator, US-based VC firm Gaingels, and Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma. In September 2021, the Bengaluru-based startup had raised $8 million in a Series A round led by Khosla Ventures. Vahan was a part of Airtel’s Startup Accelerator Program and the telecom giant also picked up an 8.82% stake in the Madhav Krishna-led firm in October 2019. The fresh funds will be used to develop AI recruitment technology that supports eight major Indian languages, Vahan said in a press release. Currently, Vahan’s AI recruiter conducts interviews in English and Hindi. It also plans to expand into industries such as manufacturing and retail. Since its launch in 2016, Vahan claims to have recruited over 500,000 workers in more than 480 cities with leading companies such as Zomato, Swiggy, Flipkart, Zepto, Blinkit, Amazon, Rapido, and Uber. With over 25,000 recruits each month, Vahan reduces costs and turnaround time for recruitment. For the fiscal year ending March 2023, Vahan reported Rs 29.7 crore in operating revenue with a loss of Rs 17.71 crore. While the firm has yet to file its annual report for FY24, it expects to grow 2X or more in FY25. In the blue-collar recruitment sector, Vahan had faced initial competition from the likes of Baba Jobs and Aasaan Jobs. However, both struggled to grow and eventually merged with Quikr and OLX in 2017 and 2019, respectively. Tiger Global-backed Apna, which became a unicorn in 2021, emerged as a major competitor after the pandemic.