Virohan, a Gurugram-based startup that offers healthcare-related educational courses and training, has raised $7 million (about INR 57.6 crore) in its Pre-Series B1 round led by Blume Ventures for a minority stake. The round also saw participation from Bharat Inclusion Seed Fund, Rebright Partners and Lesing Artha Limited, bringing its total capital raised to $11 million till date.
With the new fundraising, Virohan is aiming to expand to 200+ new campuses Pan-India, and train more than 7000 students. The company is also planning to develop and launch new training programs, scale its omnichannel training platform infrastructure and content in vernacular languages along with developing new features to further increase learning outcomes for students.
Co-founded in 2018 by Kunaal Dudeja, Nalin Saluja and Archit Jayaswal, Virohan trains students in allied health programs (AHPs), who work as technicians, forming about 60% of the healthcare workforce. These students, after training, take up roles like phlebotomist, medical lab technicians, operating theatre technicians, among others. The firm aims to meet the current gap of over 5 million technicians trained in AHPs in India, citing a BCG-Niti Ayog report.
Virohan works with a passion to build a generation of learners who can grow their skills into a career. It focuses on providing the best learning opportunities to students to build a career in the healthcare industry. The platform operates hybrid classrooms on campuses and does online training across India in cities including Delhi, Faridabad, Pune, Raipur, Meerut, and Nagpur.
Commenting on the funding, Co-founder & CEO of Virohan, Kunaal Dudeja, said:
This investment is a testament of our product-market fit, scalability, impact and profitability of the business model. In the next 18 months Virohan will deepen its relationship with its stakeholders (Students, Universities/Colleges & Medical institutions), train over 10,000 students, and establish an international presence to cater to $100B+ global opportunity.
The startup claims to have trained 7,000+ students across its courses, which has seen over 96% completion rates and more than 98% placement rates within one month of programme completion. It works with 1000+ partners such as Fortis Escorts, 1MG, Dr Lal Path Labs, Sarvodaya Healthcare, Healthians, and others, to help students get internships and job offers.
Director, Blume Ventures, Sajith Pai, added:
We have always seen Indian education as being a key engine of catalysing the nation’s development. Equally, education can also help leapfrog social classes and economic cohorts. Hence, we have consistently bet on education startups lowering barriers for access and expanding opportunities to all. This is why we are excited to partner with Virohan for its ambition and mission to skill and upgrade the next hundred million Indians.
According to the company, it also plans to expand geographically to Japanese markets through the support from its investors ALES and Redbright Partners. Virohan looks to expand to over 200 training centres.
In October 2021, Virohan had raised an additional $1.3 million in funding from its existing investors Keiretsu Forum and Better Capital. Other investors including Priya Shah (General Partner at Theia Ventures), Vikas Gambhir (Partner – Grant Thornton), and Joydeep Battacharya (Partner – Bain & Co), also participated in this round.
