Kovon, the cross-border workforce-mobility platform founded by Bibartan Roy and Swayamjeet Das, has raised $250,000 in a pre-seed funding round led by TDV Partners.
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. The startup aims to connect India’s skilled blue and grey collar workforce to global job opportunities through an end-to-end skilling, financing, and placement platform.
The funds will be used to further develop the product and platform, 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.
Roy and Das are focussing on building a trusted platform for blue- and grey-collar workers across industries including healthcare, hospitality, construction, and logistics, connecting skilled Indian talent to international job opportunities.
Serving as an infrastructure layer across the entire journey, from job discovery and upskilling to financing and placement, the platform addresses critical gaps in skilling, financing, and deployment.
As advanced economies across Europe, the UK, and the Middle East continue to struggle with labour shortages, the global need for skilled professionals is rising. Kovon’s mission is to make these opportunities easier, more reliable, and better organised for Indian workers, while at the same time helping international employers address their talent gaps.
Bibartan Roy, co founder and CEO, Kovo.io, feels, “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.”
Ujwal Sutaria, founder and general partner, TDV Partners, highlighted how “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.”
Kovon is on a mission 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.