UAE-based EdTech and Future of Work marketplace, Qureos, has raised $3 million in its pre-seed round led by Dubai-based early-stage VC COTU Ventures and New York-based early-stage VC Colle Capital as it seeks to globally fast-track growth and democratize ‘Learn to Earn’ opportunities for talent.
The round also had participation from global and regional investors, including Globivest, Plutus21 Capital, Dubai Angel Investors, and AlZayani Venture Capital. Several of the angel investors comprised the current and former leaders of Swvl, the Boston Consulting Group, Moelis & Company, Careem, Cisco Systems, Koinz, Message Bird, Bain & Company, Hiperpool, ADNOC, QIA, and other notable individuals.
Founded in August 2021 by Alexander Epure, Mehrad Yaghmai, and Usama Nini, Qureos was initiated as a passion project for the founders to accelerate careers by making mentorship more accessible. This passion project was validated when it was selected by the Dubai Future Accelerators to remedy the skill gap in the transition from campus to the workplace and in between jobs.
Qureos is building an experiential learning community to change how people connect, learn and work while helping people from over 127 countries learn in-demand skills through cohort-based learning paths led by world-class industry experts that match the hiring demands of its business partners.
Qureos is resolving the skill gap in the transition from the campus to the workplace and for those who are changing careers. Globally, there are 254 million graduate Gen Z-ers who are unemployed due to the skill gap, most notably in emerging markets where youth unemployment is above 36 percent. The job market is changing faster than school curriculums and emerging talent are not getting traditional job placements. The scenario has given Qureos the opportunity to tap into the $470B e-learning and future of work markets that are currently separated.
On the back of this fundraise, Qureos has officially launched its operations in Pakistan and plans to invest heavily in the country to create one million learning opportunities and facilitate over 100,000 jobs within the next three years. With 29 percent of the population between the ages of 15 and 29, Pakistan is an ideal country for Queros to focus on in line with its mission to “accelerate 100 million careers”. Besides, Qureos also plans to expand its team in the country where over 50 percent of its current workforce resides.
The Founder and Managing Partner of COTU Ventures, Amir Farha, stated,
We believe that new learning models like Qureos, which combine cohort-based, synchronous education with community, are going to become more mainstream and disrupt traditional players. From our perspective, the energy and passion that the team exhibited from our initial conversations, to the traction demonstrated so early on, and the deep product vision, were all ingredients to driving our conviction in the business. We’re excited to be a part of this journey and seeing the team’s vision of upskilling talent become a reality.
With instant applications on many job platforms today, hiring fatigue is becoming a burden on HR teams, with 47 percent of candidates failing job interviews due to a lack of alignment with the company. Resultantly, businesses are facing an increasing average cost of hiring of $4,129 per hire and an average time-to-hire of 42 days.
By 2025, millennials and Gen Z-ers will make up 75 percent of the global workforce, according to Deloitte. Qureos’s creation of a learning community allows growing businesses to tap into an on-demand workforce of talent that has been mentored to deliver high-quality work. With Qureos, businesses can reduce their cost-to-hire by 79 percent and their time-to-hire by 36 percent through its proprietary performance-based hiring framework.
Qureos’s Co-founder and CEO, Alexander Epure, remarked,
Learning and hiring are disconnected and Qureos aims to leverage its unique position at the nexus of these two markets through an experiential learning community where emerging talent can learn from industry experts and gain experience through mentor-led hiring cohorts from businesses.
The founders added that
Qureos is going after a massive opportunity with the ultimate aim of creating an ecosystem that unlocks the potential of the human capital. There is a huge untapped potential amongst emerging talent which is not harnessed and it’s about time we create an inspirational story that brings together people who align with our mission.
With native network effects of the platform, Qureos has been able to achieve phenomenal organic growth of more than 25,000 users and attract mentors from leading organizations such as Google, Paypal, Amazon, Cisco, and over 100 business partners globally.
Tomas Panek, who works in Digital Marketing at Qatar Airways, commented, “Creators and industry experts can seamlessly monetize their knowledge, build an online presence and personal brand while giving back to the local and global community”.
The Founder and Managing Partner of Colle Capital, Victoria Grace, stated, “We see tremendous opportunity in Qureos’s mission to bridge knowledge gaps and upskill professionals through leveraging the extraordinary pathway with direct mentorship. Simultaneously this platform provides a fantastic opportunity for highly skilled individuals to directly monetize their knowledge base, compounded by distinct network effects, and for companies to access high quality and motivated pool of talent”.
“It is also extremely gratifying to see the proliferation of entrepreneurial talent in the region directly stemming from the success of Swvl. It is clear to us at Colle Capital that the rising Swvl Mafia will be at the forefront of ushering in a new and exciting wave of innovation in the MENA region and beyond,” she added.
Qureos had announced its partnership with DP World, a Dubai-based multinational logistics provider, in November 2021 to digitize the Tumoohi program — an initiative to support the Emirati society and contribute to the UAE government’s efforts to enable Emirati youth.
The CFO of Swvl and a Member of Qureos’s Board of Advisors, Youssef Salem, said, “I am excited to see Alex and Usama, Swvl alumni, and the rest of the founding team raise a highly successful and oversubscribed round and launch in multiple markets. From Swvl’s reliable and affordable transport to Qureos’ Learn to Earn model, the common mission is enhancing access to work and education opportunities and empowering livelihoods”.
“I am also encouraged to see Victoria, the CEO of Queen’s Gambit Growth Capital, the SPAC Swvl is combing with, continue to invest in global players emerging out of the Middle East to scale internationally and access global pools of capital,” he continued.
Qureos plans to use this investment to build product-led operations and expand its remote-first team with a focus on hiring talent for its offices in the UAE, Pakistan, and India. Its diverse team comes from 11 cities and 10 nationalities with experiences at Swvl, Cisco, Careem, EY, Daraz, HSBC, and Aleph.
