The early-stage investment firm, Venture Catalysts said that it has partially exited from Cusmat Technologies (Cusmat), which offers a skilling program to companies to train their industrial workforce.  

The firm added that it is exiting with over 4.2 x returns in less than three years resulting in more than 60 per cent of extended internal rate of return.  

The firm made its first investment in 2020 in a seed round but took an exit in the month of February this year when the start-up raised $3.5 million series A round from Arkam Ventures, Unitus, Better Capital, We Founder Circle, 9Unicorns, and MapMyIndia amongst others.    

Speaking about the exit, Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, founder and managing director at Venture Catalysts ++, said, “We have been invested in Cusmat since its Seed round way back when the term Metaverse was not even coined or was popular. We believed in the concept and continued to back them through their Series A round. The company has posted some impressive growth metrics in the last two years and with that, they have offered their initial investors an option to exit with 4x returns.  We take pride in supporting such founders. The move has also brought a lot of optimism in the ecosystem, especially during a challenging economic environment for raising primary rounds.” 

Cusmat’s Skilling Platform offers businesses the chance to upskill their industrial workforce to improve productivity and safety standards while reducing costs. Companies such as Procter and Gamble, ABB, Vedanta, Tata Steel Mining, DHL, DTDC, Dr. Reddy's, Voltas, Schneider Electric, Toshiba Mitsubishi, Volvo, Sandvik, Ultratech are clients of the start-up.  

Abhinav Ayan, co-founder and CEO, Cusmat said, “The metaverse is the ideal environment to develop muscle memory and heightened retention needed for the optimum performance in real-world industrial activities. The great feedback from large enterprises across multiple sectors in India and South Asia has convinced us of the product market fit for our skilling metaverse platform. Our goal has consistently remained to positively impact the topline and bottom line of enterprises by improving the skill level of their operators & technicians.” 

In 2016, Ayan and Anirban Jyoti and Soumyaranajan Hrichandan founded Cusmat and so far the start-up has raised $4.2 million in funding since its inception.