Cusmat, an immersive skilling platform that enterprises use to upskill their industrial workforce, has raised $3.5 million in Series-A round of fundraising. This round is led by Arkam Ventures along with participation from Unitus, Better Capital, Venture Catalysts, MapMyIndia, 9 Unicorns, We Founder Circle, Mumbai Angels Network, Dholakia Ventures, Ice VC, and Legacy Asset LLP, according to a statement.
Cusmat is the first immersive skilling platform leveraged by large enterprises. Their clientele includes companies such as ABB, Vedanta, Tata Steel Mining, DHL, DTDC, Dr. Reddy’s, Voltas, Schneider Electric, Toshiba Mitsubishi, Ultratech, and many more. Besides India, Cusmat is already operating in other countries in the APAC (Asia Pacific) and MEA (Middle East and Africa) regions.
The Cusmat platform leverages its proprietary physics simulation engine (capable of recreating Industrial facilities, equipment, processes to a great degree of detail), embedded analytics engine, IoT, AI/ ML to first assess and then up-skill on realistic digital twins of industrial facilities. Cusmat’s skilling metaverse platform does a better job of instilling the hard skills that are needed to be mastered by the industrial workforce, which cannot be easily assimilated through a pen & paper, video or in two dimensions.
Abhinav Ayan, co-founder and CEO of Cusmat, said, “The metaverse is the ideal environment to develop muscle memory for real-world activities. The initial traction and great feedback from large enterprises in India and South Asia have convinced us of the product market fit for our skilling metaverse platform.”
He added that while the technology platform is ready for wide-scale adoption and is backed by strong large enterprise references, the company’s continued investment in product R&D and engineering will work in sync with our efforts in scaling up enterprise sales.
Anirban Chakravorty, co-founder and COO of Cusmat, said, “Core industries like mining, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and logistics typically see high attrition rates which cause discontinuity in peak productivity levels. Our goal has consistently remained to positively impact the topline (revenue) and bottomline (profit) by improving the skill level of their operators & technicians.”
He added that in the entire industrial setup of man, machine and materials, Cusmat’s high immersion skilling systems complemented with its robust analytics stack enables its customers to recruit, assess and perform better.
Bala Srinivasa, managing director of Arkam Ventures, said, “India’s success in becoming a global manufacturing and industrial hub depends on training and employing millions of skilled workers. Industrial workers in sectors like mining, pharma, logistics, steel operate complex and high-cost machinery that directly impacts top line and efficiency.”
Cusmat’s VR-based industrial skilling software is a game changer that dramatically improves worker productivity and reduces training time from months to days. “We were impressed by customer love for this product and also the validation of business value.”
According to a report by the World Economic Forum and PWC, poor skills cost the global economy $6.5 trillion, out of which $570 billion is attributed to India alone. Cusmat’s experience with industrial brands in India and in some South Asian markets has shown that the “skilled via the Metaverse” workforce is about 30 per cent more productive, 25 per cent more efficient, and 70 per cent safer than their peers. Furthermore, the retention rate for those ‘skilled on the metaverse’ is very high, hovering at 70 per cent on an average.
The founders of Cusmat are Abhinav Ayan and Anirban Jyoti Chakravorty, from NIT Warangal.
Read all the Latest Business News here