Simulation software startup Knolskape raises Series A funding

Knolskape Solutions Pvt. Ltd, a gamification and simulation software firm operating in the talent transformation space, has raised an undisclosed amount in a Series A funding round from venture capital firm Inventus Capital Partners and human resources (HR)-focused private investment company The HR Fund, the company said in a statement.

The firm will use the investment for expansion, product innovation and building partnerships.

While Inventus Capital will help Knolskape scale up its operations globally, The HR Fund will bring in domain expertise from the global HR community.

"According to Gartner, the global market for gamification solutions will be roughly at $5.5 billion by end-2018. Global corporations have been using such solutions in areas such as customer engagement, loyalty programmes and sales, and are extending them to their internal operations and employees. In India, adoption is hindered by conventionally ingrained attitudes towards use of such tools at the workplace. But of late, gamification is adopted by corporates to engage the younger workforce," said Utkarsh Joshi, principal, The HR Fund.

"With the millennial generation set to occupy half of the global workforce (by 2020), HR has realised that there is an immediate need for engaging youngsters. Microlearning and bite-sized lessons in the form of games are a new trend catching up in India," said Rajiv Jayaraman, founder and CEO, Knolskape.

The startup uses simulations and gaming technology for recruitment, training, assessment and talent engagement for organisations.

Knolskape's clients include financial services firms Edelweiss and Bajaj Finserv, insurance firm Kotak Life Insurance, telecom firms Vodafone and Idea, and accounting firm EY, among others.

Of late, startups in the HR services and recruitment space have been seeing considerable investor interest.

Mumbai-based AasaanJobs Pvt. Ltd, which runs an online recruitment marketplace for blue-collar workers, raised $5 million (around Rs 34 crore) in Series A funding from Aspada Advisors, IDG Ventures and Inventus Capital in February this year.

In January 2016, Indian Angel Network (IAN) member and angel investor Abhinav Mathur invested an undisclosed amount in seed funding in Noida-based Talentiser Labs that runs recruitment app Jobick.

Talent retention and analytics firm Jombay Pvt. Ltd raised an undisclosed amount in a second round of funding in October 2015 from VentureWorks India and Nikunj Jhaveri, chairman of Systems Plus.

In September 2015, recruitment and training platform Capabiliti raised $393,000 (Rs 2.6 crore) from angel investors including Snapdeal co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal; Freshdesk founder Girish Mathrubootham; Google India head Rajan Anandan; QikPod founder and CEO Ravi Gururaj; Indifi Technologies co-founder and CEO Alok Mittal and others.