Kovon, a cross-border workforce mobility platform, has raised $250,000 in a pre-seed funding round led by TDV Partners. Founded by Bibartan Roy and Swayamjeet Das, Kovon is building a trusted platform for blue and grey-collar workers across industries such as healthcare, hospitality, construction, and logistics, connecting skilled Indian talent to international job opportunities.

The platform acts as an infrastructure layer across the entire journey, from job discovery and upskilling to financing and placement, while addressing critical gaps across skilling, financing, and deployment. As developed economies across Europe, the UK, and the Middle East face persistent labour shortages, the demand for skilled workers globally continues to rise. Kovon aims to make these opportunities more accessible, reliable, and structured for Indian workers while helping international employers meet talent shortages.

The fresh capital will be deployed towards product and platform development, strengthening employer partnerships globally, expanding candidate acquisition, and building out the skilling and training ecosystem. The company also plans to hire across technology, operations, and partnerships.

According to EY’s report Reaping the Demographic Dividend India at 100, India is expected to have one of the largest working-age populations globally by 2030. Every year millions of people in India migrate in search of employment, especially from Tier 2 & 3 cities to metropolitan markets. At the same time, a severe skilled labour shortage in developed countries, driven by ageing populations and declining workforce participation, presents a significant opportunity for India to emerge as a global supplier of skilled talent.

Bibartan Roy, Co founder and CEO of Kovon.io, said, “We witnessed the fragmentation in global talent mobility, particularly in the blue-collar segment, firsthand through our experience across education, skilling, fintech, and workforce supply chains. While global demand is surging, the supply chain remains broken at multiple levels driving exploitation, eroding trust, and failing both talent and employers. At Kovon, we are bridging this demand-supply divide by embedding financial access, discovery, opportunity, and trust into a single, seamless platform.”

As per the  OECD’s International Migration Outlook 2025, 2.25 lakh Indians gained nationality in OECD countries in 2023, with Canada, the United States, and Australia as key destinations. India remains one of the world’s largest recipients of remittances, with inflows reaching USD 135.4 billion in FY25, underlining the significant contribution of Indians working abroad to household incomes and local economies.

Piyush Goyal, India’s Minister of Commerce and Industry, has also encouraged Indian businesses and workers to tap into global demand, describing it as a potential “game-changer” for the country’s economic growth. Referring to the Australian housing crisis, he highlighted the multi-billion dollar opportunity and urged Indian startups and enterprises to actively participate.

Commenting on the announcement, Ujwal Sutaria, Founder and General Partner at TDV Partners, said, “The blue-collar and grey-collar workforce mobility segment presents a significant opportunity, given the scale of the Indian workforce. Kovon is building in a structurally growing space with a transparent, efficient, and tech-first approach. While automation continues to evolve, these roles remain far from being replaced. Much like Indians have gone on to lead global organisations at the white-collar level, we believe similar pathways will emerge for blue-collar workers on the global stage.”

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Despite strong global demand for talent, the system remains fragmented and largely unorganised, with limited infrastructure for skill certification, compliance, and globally aligned placements. As a result, what should be a clear pathway to opportunity often becomes uncertain and uneven.

Compliance with local labour regulations and ethical recruitment practices continues to be a significant challenge. Under the guise of facilitating work visas, many job aspirants fall prey to fraudulent operators, often losing substantial sums of money. In some cases, individuals also find themselves stranded in foreign countries without adequate employer support, highlighting the need for more transparent and reliable pathways.

Kovon is being built to change this. It aims to build trust and create a transparent, end-to-end ecosystem for cross-border workforce mobility, covering discovery, verification, placement, and post-deployment support. The platform brings together job discovery, candidate verification, upskilling, financing, placement, and post-deployment support into one ecosystem, reducing friction and helping workers and employers connect with greater confidence. With the advent of AI tech which they plan to build, these workflows become much easier and smoother than what it used to be previously. For families seeking stable income opportunities, it aims to replace uncertainty with trust and access.

With India as its talent base, Kovon is focused on building skilled, verified, job-ready pipelines for labour-deficient markets across the Middle East, Europe, the UK, and beyond.