Learn to Earn community, Qureos secures $3M funding round to accelerate 100M careers

UAE-based EdTech and Future of Work marketplace Qureos has raised $3M 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 fast track growth and democratize “Learn to Earn” opportunities for talent globally.

The round also saw participation from global and regional investors, including Globivest, Plutus21 Capital, Dubai Angel Investors, and AlZayani Venture Capital. ​​Several angel investors including current and former leaders of Swvl, 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, Queros began life as a passion project for the founders to accelerate careers by making mentorship more accessible. This passion project was validated when selected by the Dubai Future Accelerators to solve 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. Qureos is 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 from Qureos’ business partners.

Qureos is solving the skill gap in the transition from campus to the workplace and those changing careers. Globally, there are 254 million Gen Z who have graduated and are still unemployed due to the skill gap, most notably in emerging markets where youth unemployment is above 36%. The job market is changing faster than school curriculums and emerging talent are not getting traditional job placements. Qureos is tapping into the $470B e-learning and future of work markets that are currently separated. 

“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. “ said Amir Farha – Founder and Managing Partner at COTU Ventures

With instant applications on many job platforms today, hiring fatigue is becoming a burden on HR teams with 47% of candidates failing job interviews due to a lack of alignment to the company. By 2025, Millennials and Gen Z will make up 75% of the global workforce according to Deloitte. As a result, businesses are facing an increasing average cost of hiring of $4,129 per hire and an average time-to-hire of 42 days.

By creating a learning community, Qureos allows growing businesses to tap into an on-demand workforce of talent who have been mentored to deliver a high quality of work. With Qureos, businesses are able to reduce their cost-to-hire by up to 79% and their time-to-hire by 36% through Qureos’ proprietary performance-based hiring framework.

“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,” said Alexander Epure, Co-Founder and CEO at Qureos.

“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” said the founders.

With native network effects of the platform, Qureos has been able to achieve phenomenal organic growth of 25,000+ users, as well as attracting mentors from leading organizations including Google, Paypal, Amazon, Cisco, and more than 100 business partners globally.

“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.“ said Tomas Panek – Digital Marketing at Qatar Airways.

Victoria Grace, Founder and Managing Partner at Colle Capital said: “We see tremendous opportunity in Qureos’ 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.“

In November 2021, Qureos announced its partnership with DP World, a Dubai-based multinational logistics provider, to digitize the Tumoohi program, an initiative to support the Emirati society and contribute to the UAE government’s efforts to enable Emirati youth.

“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” said Youssef Salem, CFO of Swvl and Member of Board of Advisors of Qureos.

Qureos plans to use this investment to build product-led operations and expand its remote-first team with a focus on hiring talent for their 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.