5th November 2018, Bangalore: Unitus Ventures in partnership with Michael & Susan Dell Foundation launched the first edition of “Jobtech 2.0”, a nation-wide competition to invest in startups that address the future of India’s jobs/employment opportunities. Startups will be assessed for product-market fit, product differentiation, and growth potential and selected startups will receive up to $1m funding and guidance from top-notch investors and advisors. The specific focus of this competition is startups addressing skills mismatch, upskilling, freelancing and job matching, gig platforms, mentoring and coaching platforms. The competition is open for entries until 26th November 2019.
India’s economy is facing the heat of a slowdown with both unemployment and underemployment bearing the brunt, thus presenting an opportunity for the investing and startup ecosystem to provide innovative solutions. As employers tighten their hiring spends, startups focused on upskilling for changing careers, bridging skill mismatch gap, and the gig economy’s favorite produce – freelancing, will provide enough elbow room for tackling unemployment as well as aiding tomorrow’s population to become job-fit for employment. Unitus’ Jobtech 2.0 is aimed to find and enable rapid growth for startups, to help solve this critical problem.
Per an opinion piece, 37 million workers left agriculture as primary occupation in the last six years and either moved to other professions or are jobless. The sort of skilling and employment opportunities available for these workers remain an area of uncertainty, however with vast possibilities. Tech-enabled job matching platforms for youth or staffing agencies enabling blue-collar workers’ integration into mainstream economy are areas with budding prospects.
“We see immense market potential and impact opportunity in the verticals Unitus Ventures’ Jobtech 2.0 plans to address. Startups have potential to turn around the complex problem of unemployment by shaping tomorrow’s job opportunities as well as making India’s youth ready for the future. Our investment in Unitus Ventures backed Awign, a crowdsourcing platform that enables companies to outsource their tasks, confirms jobtech is the way forward for impact-led growth.” says, Rahil Rangwala, Director, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation.
The competition will close by 26th November 2019.
Interested applicants can apply here: unitus.vc/jt2
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About Unitus Ventures
Unitus Ventures is the leading venture fund in India that supports early-stage fintech, healthcare, and jobtech startups with India scale and global emerging market potential. Launched in 2012, Unitus Ventures is a founding member of Capria Network, the leading global network of emerging market fund managers collaborating to deliver superior returns and scaled impact. Unitus Ventures is based in Bangalore and Seattle. More at https://unitus.vc and http://capria.vc/network
