Kovon, a cross-border workforce mobility startup focused on India’s blue and grey-collar workforce, has raised $250,000 in a pre-seed funding round led by TDV Partners.
Kovon was founded in 2025 by Bibartan Roy and Swayamjeet Das to develop an online platform that will allow highly skilled Indian laborers to access foreign job opportunities in fields including healthcare, hospitality, construction, and logistics.
The company aims to bring structure, trust and transparency to a space that has long remained fragmented, especially for workers seeking overseas employment.
For millions of Indians from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, migration is often seen as a route to better income and long-term family stability. But the journey is rarely simple. Job discovery, skill certification, visa processes, financing, employer verification and post-placement support are usually handled by different players, often with limited accountability. Kovon wants to bring these moving parts into one organised system.
The fresh capital will be used for product and platform development, expanding employer partnerships globally, candidate acquisition, and strengthening the skilling and training ecosystem. The company also plans to hire across technology, operations and partnerships.
Bibartan Roy, co-founder and CEO of Kovon.io, said the founders saw the gaps in global talent mobility through their 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,” he said.
Kovon’s model comes at a time when ageing populations and labour shortages in developed economies are creating demand for skilled workers. The startup is looking at markets across the Middle East, Europe, the UK and beyond, with India as its core talent base.
Ujwal Sutaria, Founder and General Partner at TDV Partners, said the blue and grey-collar workforce mobility space presents a significant opportunity given the scale of India’s workforce. He added that Kovon is building with a “transparent, efficient, and tech-first approach” in a structurally growing market.
The larger problem Kovon is trying to solve is not just employment access, but trust. Many overseas job aspirants face unclear processes, high upfront costs and the risk of fraudulent operators. Some workers also end up abroad without adequate employer support. Kovon says its platform will cover job discovery, candidate verification, upskilling, financing, placement and post-deployment support, helping workers and employers connect with more confidence.
India is already deeply linked to global migration and remittances. Indians working abroad continue to contribute significantly to household incomes and local economies back home. Kovon is positioning itself within that larger shift, where frontline workers from India could find more formal, verified and reliable global employment routes.
For now, the company’s promise is straightforward: make international job mobility less risky, less scattered and more accessible for India’s skilled frontline workforce.
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