Communication fitness firm vani.coach to skill corp execs, eyes $15 mn ARR

Pune-based firm counts Lupin, L&T, Asian Paints, Reckitt and Cipla among clients; has raised a pre-seed round of $150,000, and is now in talks with some venture capitalists for a seed round

Vani.coach, which helps enterprises enhance their employees' "communication fitness", recently said it plans to raise its annual revenue run rate (ARR) to $15 million by FY23, driven by strong demand in sectors like pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, and banking and financial services.

The Pune-based firm counts Lupin Ltd, Larsen and Toubro, Asian Paints, Reckitt and Cipla among its clients. The firm has raised a pre-seed round of $150,000, and is now in talks with a few venture capitalists for a seed round.

"vani.coach offers 1:1 communication fitness coaching to working professionals across the corporate hierarchy, from the shop floor to the top floor. Below-par communication fitness affects job performance across levels, whether you are a diploma engineer working on a construction site or a director for a Big4 firm. Instead of offering a "course," vani.coach personalises the learning journey for each individual optimised for learning outcome. So, each individual is a curriculum in themselves," explains Ashish Jha, Co-Founder and CEO – vani.coach.

The focus, he said, is on simulating real life scenarios that a learner can practise under the supervision of their coach. The firm also has a gig workforce of 150 coaches who are trained and certified to build customised learning resources.

Jha is a journalist turned entrepreneur with 16 years of coaching experience.

Vani.coach is primarily a business to business (B2B) engagement, where enterprises sign up for 300-400 licenses annually, with license fee starting at $110 per user for a four month subscription.

The firm already has about 2,000 active users currently, and is looking to sign up about 18,000-20,000 people by the end of March 2022.

The larger goal, said Jha, is to leave no one "uncoached". "We have a roadmap to drive growth along three dimensions - categories- after B2B, go to the educational institutions and then D2C (direct to consumer), Offerings- build upon areas that require coachassisted upskilling, AI driven freemium version for mobile and wearables,  and Markets. We plan to expand to MENA (Middle East/North Africa), SEA (South East Asia, and Europe," Jha said.

Vani.Coach currently has about 200 coaches – with one coach capable of handling about 100-120 trainees.  Jha said the market they operate in is seeing immense interest from investors.

"We are experiencing strong tailwinds because at one end the enterprises are pushing for digital transformation and at the other the professionals have woken up to the criticality of skill building. We have ourselves been experiencing unprecedented traction. This makes companies such as ours a great opportunity to invest in," he added.

The major challenges the firm faces are having people "practise" daily by recording themselves, listen and reflect, do self-assessment - all those bits that need regularity and discipline. Vani.coach tackles this by ensuring that people have the most relevant learning experiences so that they can feel the change in how they are communicating.

Another challenge it occasionally encounters is related to infrastructure, especially from users located in remote areas. It plans to fix this in its next release, which will have offline sync and a lite version to overcome this.