Online makeup and beauty learning platform Airblack on Tuesday said it has raised $5.2 million (about Rs 38.6 crore) in funding, co-led by Info Edge Ventures and Elevation Capital.
The series A round also saw participation from Atelier Ventures, Ankur Nagpal (Teachable Founder and CEO), Kunal Shah (Cred founder), Better Capital, Vidit Aatrey (Meesho co-founder and CEO).
Besides, Sanjeev Barnwal (Meesho co-founder and CTO), Sujeet Kumar (Udaan co-founder), Utsav Somani (AngelList India Partner) and Ashish Gupta (Helion Ventures Managing Director) also participated in the funding round, a statement said.
Proceeds of the funding will be utilised in accelerating the expansion of the ''Beauty Club'' programme, launching new clubs and investing in product, engineering and brand.
The company is also actively hiring across engineering, design and operations, it added.
Airblack helps people upskill and become micro-entrepreneurs in the beauty skilling market through ''do-it-together'' (DIT) courses. Curated experts present these courses live in a workshop format and enable participants to learn in an interactive manner.
Over 25,000 learners have attended these courses across more than 500 cities since last year. A majority of these are women who have since become freelancers, online creators or home-salon owners, the statement said.
The Instagram and YouTube revolution has made people aware that there are hundreds of ways to earn a livelihood. Traditional edtech is just the tip of the iceberg and has been limited to a few skills. We foresee over 100 million people becoming digital creators and freelancers in India in the next five years," Airblack founder and CEO Videt Jaiswal said.
He added that the fundraise will allow the company to take its DIT courses to millions of creators and micro-entrepreneurs.
Vaas Bhaskar, Vice President at Elevation Capital, said India is already home to the second largest freelancer community in the world, and COVID has only accelerated this trend.
"We believe that Airblack is well placed to become the learning and enablement brand for millions of internet-first entrepreneurs in the coming decade," he added.
Airblack clocks over 45,000 hours of live classes every month that are supplemented by take-home assignments.
"This round allows us to double down on launching new courses and tools to make our entrepreneurs successful, Vaibhav Raj, founder and Head of Engineering at Airblack, said.
