Skillveri Redefines Skill Training for Welders

KOCHI:
It was the skill he had in identifying opportunities and snapping them up that made Sabarinath. C. Nair a successful entrepreneur. His company Skillveri was born out of a critical need for skilled manpower in the welding sector.
Chennai-based Skillveri’s expo stall at the grand finale venue of ‘India Skills Kerala 2018’ at Marine Ground here is a testimony to the effort the team has taken to evolve a cost-effective and time-saving skills training method; they are now a market leader in making Welding and Spray Painting training simulators.
“The simulator is mainly for training welders to improve their accuracy and hand skill. A welder can identify his own defects on the job and improve it, while an employer can easily evaluate the potential of his staff. The simulator helps the welder give almost a robotic quality output,” said Sabarinath, Founder and CEO, Skillveri.
According to him, the expo provides an opportunity for students to prove their potential and understand the significance of the respective trades. “It also provides awareness to the public on the actual function of the each equipment displayed here.”
A native of Thiruvananthapuram, Sabarinath realized the necessity of skill development while working in another firm. He and his friend Kannan Lakshmi Narayan then started Skillveri, first making a prototype of the simulator that went down well with the potential clients they pitched to.
“The price of the simulators ranges from Rs 10 lakh to 15 lakh depending on the types of welding done. We have fifty customers across India, including Maruti Suzuki, Ashok Leyland and National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC) among others,” he said.
Talking about his startup journey, Sabarinath said: “Right from the off, we got a positive response from customers. So we applied for incubation at IIT Madras’s Rural Technology Business Incubator (RTBI) and we got selected.”
“Through the RTBI, we received soft-loans, which took care of our expenses for building and commercializing our first product, Skillveri AURA MIG welding simulator,” he said.
“In December 2018, we raised Rs 8 crore from Michael and Susan Dell Foundation as well as Ankur Capital. Then we developed a new line of simulators for Spray Painting, and revamped the existing welding simulators utilizing cutting edge extended reality (XR) technology,” he explained.
“In 2012 we won the India Innovation Initiative Award, and in 2014 we got the National Skill Development Corporation’s (NSDC) National Innovation for Skills Award,” Sabarinath added. The firm is in advanced stages of adding more modules of simulators for blasting and sealant application. They are also expanding to South East Asia, Middle East and Europe.
Skillveri Currently has a 20-member team, and offices in Chennai and Pune. The grand finale of ‘India Skills Kerala 2018’ was jointly organised by Industrial Training Department and Kerala Academy for Skills Excellence (KASE), the nodal agency of the state government for its Skill Development Mission.