Vahan, a pioneering platform specializing in recruitment for blue-collar workers, has raised $10 million in its latest funding round, with leading contributions from Khosla Ventures. This fresh capital injection will be utilized to further develop the company’s AI-driven recruitment technology and expand its services into sectors like manufacturing, warehousing, and retail, according to founder and CEO Madhav Krishna.
The funding round also saw participation from Y Combinator, US-based Gaingels, and Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder of Paytm. Vahan’s innovative ‘AI Recruiter’ currently operates in English and Hindi, with plans to extend its capabilities to cover eight additional Indian languages and hundreds of regional dialects within the next year.
Krishna revealed that Vahan currently facilitates the hiring of around 25,000 workers per month. With the new funding, the company aims to broaden its reach beyond gig workers, who have been the core focus so far, into other key industries with massive employment potential. The expansion will open doors for a much larger pool of job seekers, with the company poised to tap into the millions of workers employed in these sectors.
Founded in 2016, Vahan has quickly positioned itself as a tech-driven solution for connecting blue-collar workers with employment opportunities. The platform has placed over 500,000 workers across more than 480 cities. Its growing list of clients includes major names in the gig economy such as Zomato, Swiggy, Flipkart, Zepto, Blinkit, Amazon, Rapido, and Uber.
Madhav Krishna mentioned that Vahan has experienced exponential growth, scaling 3-4 times over the past year. He emphasized that the newly targeted verticals—manufacturing, warehousing, and retail—could eventually become the primary focus of the platform, as they represent significantly larger markets than the delivery sector, which currently hires approximately 500,000 people monthly.
This new funding follows Vahan’s previous $8 million round, also led by Khosla Ventures. Vinod Khosla, the founder of Khosla Ventures, praised Vahan’s innovative approach to recruitment, highlighting how the platform reduces repetitive tasks and provides scalable, efficient hiring solutions for millions of blue-collar workers across India.