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Chennai-based Skillveri Training Solutions is aiming to expand its business in the US and Europe as the recent spate of geopolitical events have increased the demand for its training solutions in these markets.
“Post-Brexit, a large number of workforce from eastern Europe had to leave the UK creating a sudden shortage of skilled workforce. The US is also building back its manufacturing capability to avoid overdependence on China. As a result, we are seeing great traction from both these markets,” said Sabarinath C Nair, CEO, Skillveri.
Founded in 2012 by Sabarinath and L Kannan, Skillveri was incubated at the Rural Technology Business Incubator (RTBI) in IIT Madras to provide vocational skill training. It uses eXtended Reality (XR) based simulation platform to offer hands-on training on welding, spray painting, blasting, and other skills. XR refers to the amalgam of immersive technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality.
Currently, Skillveri’s XR simulators are used by major manufacturers in the automotive and painting industry in India including Nippon Paints, Berger Paints, Tata Motors, Hyundai, Maruti Suzuki and TVS to name a few. Institutions like Industrial Training Institute (ITIs) used Skillveri solutions to train their students.
Sabarinath said that while the industry-institution customer mix is 65-35 per cent in India, it is in the ratio of 90-10 in the US market. Skillveri is aiming to increase the share of industrial customers in the US. The company will set up a new office in the US in January. “Today, Skillveri product is used in 5 out of 700 colleges and 50 out of 10,000 schools in the US. So, there is a lot of headroom for growth on the institution side as well.”
New skill training
Started with one sub-type of welding specific to the automotive industry, Skillveri later added different types of welding skills covering multiple industries. It then extended simulation training in the painting industry and merged welding and painting into one single platform.
In the domestic front, Skillveri will extend the simulators to skill solar panel technicians, AC repair mechanics and decorative painting contractors to tap the growing demand for skilled workforce in these areas.
In AC repair skill training, Sabarinath said, the company is in talks with several small time AC services companies as well as AC manufacturers besides targeting players such as Urban Company.
Nippon Paint recently partnered with Skillveri to launch an XR painter-training module to provide spray-painting training to 20,000 painters. Sabarinath said the company is in talks with big paint manufacturers and aggregators like Aapka Painter to train the painters on their platform.
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