Startup Oi, a Singapore-based social media and talent matching platform for engineers, has bagged US$1 million in a pre-seed funding round led by local VC firm January Capital.
Co-investors are Goodwater Capital, SonTech Ventures, Mohammed Alabsi (ex-Bukalapak SVP of engineering), Pritesh Gupta (ex-cofounder of Zipgo), and Nikhil Lalwani (president and CEO of ANI Pharmaceuticals).
Startup Oi plans to utilise the money to expand its global team. Its goal is to reach 2 million users throughout Asia and beyond in the next two years, starting with engineering talent hotbeds such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and India.
The company has just launched its flagship app on iPhone and Android. It will be launching blockchain gamified e-learning and community building features to encourage high engagement from users over the next year.
Also read: Is Southeast Asia facing a tech talent crisis in the midst of rapid growth?
Startup Oi was founded in 2021 by Sakshi Jawa (CEO) and Rob Creekmore (CPO and CTO) — both have extensive experience as high-level executives at e-commerce giants, including Amazon, Coupang, and Tiki.
Startup Oi positions itself as a work-and-play social network for engineers. It addresses the gap in legacy social networks and communities by supporting engineers in all aspects, including finding jobs, joining e-learning, finding mentors, building careers, and having fun with common interests.
The startup helps connect global engineers and link them with companies, serving as a personalised job search.
“Our vision goes beyond just Startup Oi. We want to connect engineers around the world to foster innovation at a global level,” said Jawa.
The company claims to have formed direct connections with more than 50 businesses in the area, emphasising filling the engineer shortage in Vietnam first. It has also appointed Phuc Truong as COO, formerly a senior manager (talent acquisition) at Tiki.
The startup boasts of listing hundreds of jobs in Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Indonesia in less than a month, with a waitlist of more than 20,000 engineers.
So far, the startup has made a presence in Vietnam, Indonesia, and India.
According to US Labor statistics, as of December 2020, the global talent shortage amounted to 40 million developers worldwide and is expected to reach 85.2 million by 2030. Companies worldwide risk losing US$8.4 trillion in revenue because of this lack of skilled talent, opening up room for innovative solutions in both edutech and human resource (HR) tech.
In Vietnam alone, there is a shortage of 500,000 IT personnel, especially high-skilled engineers, according to a report of Vietnam’s IT recruitment platform TopDev.
Meanwhile, only around 5,000 IT students graduate annually from universities, of which the training programmes do not fully meet businesses’ requirements.
Last year, some startups addressing this challenge also secured initial fundings. They include Singapore’s Rocket Academy and Vietnam’s CoderSchool.
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Image Credit: Startup Oi
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