Bengaluru-based rural business process outsourcing company RuralShores has raised ₹15 crore ($2.5 million) from Inclusive Ventures Ltd, a UK-based socio-economic platform. This is Inclusive Ventures’ first socio-economic investment in India and follows a case study at Oxford University’s Said Business School.
According to Murali Vullaganti, CEO and co-founder, RuralShores, the company has so far raised ₹40 crore in three rounds of funding. It has 19 BPO centres in nine States and employs about 2,500 rural youth. The company caters to more than 30 clients in sectors such as IT, manufacturing, banking, insurance and government departments. RuralShores expects to add 10 centres and employ an additional 3,000 rural youth in the next two years. Besides its investment in RuralShores, the biggest value that Inclusive Ventures will bring is its ability to export RuralShores’ business model to other countries, especially Africa under its South-South and reverse innovation strategies in Africa.
The Oxford Executive MBA programme with its focus on entrepreneurship has been the catalyst for this partnership between RuralShores and Inclusive Ventures, which was founded by students of the MBA programme after a visit to RuralShores last year.