Blue-collar worker app Apna becomes a unicorn in under two years

Apna helps bottom-of-the-pyramid job seekers with setting up simple profiles requiring only their name, age and skills.

Apna, a digital hiring startup in India that connects millions of blue-collar workers to employers, reached a valuation of $1.1 billion with a new funding round led by Tiger Global Management.

The startup reached unicorn status just 15 months after beginning full-scale operations, raising $100 million in a Series C round also joined by Owl Ventures LLC, Insight Partners Inc. and Sequoia Capital India. It serves more than 16 million users and 150,000 employers and enables an average of 18 million job interviews each month, the company said in a statement Thursday.

“We are solving the biggest problem in the