BorderPlus, a cross-border workforce mobility startup co-founded by UpGrad‘s co-founder Mayank Kumar, has secured $7 million in a funding round led by Owl Ventures, a venture capital firm specializing in edtech.
This funding marks the startup’s first institutional funding round, attracting investments from notable figures such as Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal, CaratLane founder Mithun Sacheti, Oyo founder Ritesh Agarwal, and Apoorva Patni of the Patni Group, who also serves as director at Currae Healthcare.
Kumar co-founded BorderPlus alongside Ayush Mathur, the former president of Oyo’s Europe operations. The newly raised capital will be used to enhance platform capabilities, strengthen partnerships, and expand its presence through mergers and acquisitions (M&As).
The company has already begun training its first cohorts of nurses, with programs lasting seven to nine months. It aims to deploy 250 nurses by the end of this year.
“The overall ecosystem has a gap of about three million healthcare workers globally. There’s a massive shortage of high-quality healthcare workers…The number of people entering the workforce is less than the number retiring, so you are not getting replacements. As a result, the demand for healthcare workers is largely being fulfilled by India, the Philippines, Brazil, and parts of Africa,” Kumar said.
The startup, which focuses on blue-collar professionals, provides comprehensive support, including finishing school training, language learning, visa assistance, job placement, cultural adaptation, recognition of local qualifications, financing, and talent leasing.
According to Kumar, BorderPlus plans to source talent from India, Southeast Asia, Brazil, parts of North America, and Africa. Initially launching in Germany, the company aims to expand its demand markets to the US, UK, Canada, Northern and Southern Europe, the Middle East, Japan, and Korea.
“We will have multiple batches, and we are aiming to achieve about Rs 100 crore in revenue by FY27,” he added. The startup plans to expand into hospitality, teaching, construction, logistics, and trucking later.
The Mumbai-based firm will generate revenue from recruiters. “We don’t want to build a B2C franchise. It’s more of a B2B and B2B enterprise-driven business… We’re flipping the model by charging the recruiter rather than the nurse,” Kumar said, emphasizing that this approach will help the platform be qualified as a fair recruiter.
Commenting on the investment, Amit A. Patel, managing director at Owl Ventures, said, “The global workforce landscape is evolving, especially with demographic trends such as ageing populations. The tiered skilling and mobility approach that BorderPlus brings to the table is solving a critical need.”
BorderPlus will revolutionize cross-border workforce mobility by providing end-to-end support for blue-collar professionals. With strong backing from prominent investors and a strategic focus on global expansion, the startup aims to bridge the talent gap across multiple regions.
