How Skillveri Grew From $500K to $1.5M Selling VR Trade Simulators to US Schools

What are your largest software contracts there?

Currently, it's at $3.50 ks for the largest contract. There are very costly methods to rate how you welded or how you painted separately on the field. So we want to add some AI grading tools for the real world so that a student, when they move from the simulation to the lab that they have in the school or when they go back to work at some point, they should be able to use an AI tool from us which would grade them objectively on how well they have painted or how well they have welded.

Someone came to you today and offered you $4,000,000 all cash upfront to sell the business. Would you exit?

No. I see a lot of growth right now.

Hey, folks. My guest today is Sabari Nair. He is the cofounder and CEO of Skillveri, skillveri.com, where they're redefining vocational training through XR simulations. He started his career in deep tech before moving into product management, and now he's building immersive solutions to bridge global skill gaps. He's also the prime minister's champions of change panel on that panel on EdTech and Skills. Sabari, are you ready to take us to the top?

Yes. So Alright.

So take us in the product first. I'm gonna share a screen here and go to your website, but but tell us what we're looking at here. What does the company sell? What do you do?

So we sell virtual reality and mixed reality simulations that, run on either a Meta Quest or a Pico headset together with

up close Hold to the camera so the audience can see it. I didn't realize you had an example. Yeah. Very cool. So it's like a VR set.

It is, but you could pair it up with real world tools like a spray painting gun or Uh-huh. Welding gun.

That's So are you mainly then selling to companies that do a lot of welding who are onboarding and training hundreds of employees?

Yes. We have two major channels, I would say. We have the industry which does their own in house training for their staff. But we also have a larger set of customers from the high schools and community colleges which have a CTE program. So that's where it's more popular in The US. In Europe and in Asia, it's more popular with the industries.

I see. Very cool. And so how do you price this? If a school buys, I guess, give me your sample customer. What do they look like?

So one example could be a high school in a place called Modesto, California. And so they have a SaaS version of our product, which means that they own the headsets like these. And they use the controllers that come standard with VR headsets to use the product. But they are looking at doing an upgrade to have one of these spray guns and the welding guns added to their program. So typically,

we are possibly the only one in this space who have a SaaS option as well. We compete with, well established large corporations which sell costly one time purchase simulations, which which cost upwards of, like, $35,000. We have something starting at around $4,000 as a software subscription.

So 4,000 just gets me the software. How many headsets does that get me?

That can... At the at the starting version of the product, that can power up up to five headsets. And, you could additionally buy these hardware add ons, the the welding gun or the spray painting gun that I showed. So that adds the immersive feel and touch and feel of the the real trade.

If you look at total revenue last year in 2024, what percent came from software versus your hardware sales?

It's currently about a sixtyforty mix, 60% from software, 40% from hardware plus software packages. So we have a significant recurring revenue component coming from the software packages, but some schools enhance it by having a one time purchase of the hardware alone, or sometimes they do like a full package. So we have very advanced simulations that sell upwards of $25,000 per set, but that includes the hardware and the perpetual license of the software.

Interesting. And I guess, are you comfortable sharing the largest package you've ever sold like today, the largest customer you support? Don't name them obviously for confidentiality reasons, but what are your largest software contracts there? Are these $50,000 per year contracts or 5,000,000 per year contracts?

Currently, it's at $3.50 k for the largest contract. So we would like to take it up to above $1,000,000, of course. Yes.

That's great. Now, a customer paying you $350,000 per year is your outlier. That's your big kahuna, your big whale. What's the average customer, though, paying you for just your software annually?

Typically, a school would either go in for a subscription as low as 4,000 that I mentioned, or a typical would... One would be about 15,000 to $20,000 every year. It varies from school to school, district to district, and what kind of skills that they want.

Okay. Okay. You keep using sort of schools as your example. Is it fair to say that as your primary customer, you're selling mainly to schools?

Yes. In The US, the schools, high schools and sometimes middle schools which have a CTE program, those are the ones which primarily use, sometimes community colleges. And in The US, it's very rare in industry. We have only four or five industrial customers right now, but that's also changing.

Yep. Yep. Okay. So four to five industry customers, meaning you're branching out from just selling to schools, but that's in the early days. How many customers today are you serving with your software?

In The US, it's about 100 schools, which means about 500 installations. Typically, a school will have a minimum of five installations. Some of them may have 20 or 30.

Is an installation equivalent to, like, a seat, a single person using the software at a time?

The the the license is linked to a device, but a device can be used by as many students as they want. So there is no limit on the number of users, but there's a limit on the number of devices.

Okay. So when you say a 100 schools and 500 installs, an average of five installs per school, an install is the software on one headset, that headset can be moved from a body to a body. So more than five people can use it, but only five at a time... At a single time can use it.

Yeah. Yeah. This is typically how it looks. So you would have a school which has multiple screens and one student would be using it, four or five other students would be watching what that student is doing and they would get a feel of what is this person doing and what kind of scores are that person doing. So they would take turns every thirty minutes to forty minutes. So by the time they get their turn, they would

have observed the other people and there would be a sense of competition as well. So you have, if I got 70 out of 100 in my attempt, my peer would want to have at least 71. So it encourages more and more practice in a very gamified manner.

Yep. That makes sense. Now you mentioned a 100 schools and $15,000 average annual contract value. If I multiply those, I get about a $1,500,000 software run rate for your company. Is that accurate?

Yeah. That's that's where we are currently at, but we're looking at... So we are only at 100 schools in The US, two fifty other customers globally worldwide. But we're looking at there are about 26,000 schools in The US which have a CTE programme. There are a thousand community colleges which have a CTE programme. And so the scope to grow is much larger. Earlier we used to do only direct selling, now we have about 10 resellers covering

about 35 of the 50 states in The US. So we hope to grow to 2,000 schools at an average of $5,000 minimum per per school. So we are looking at growing to $10,000,000 ARR. It's it's a steep growth, but that's what we we believe should be possible.

I wanna talk more about how you expand in The United States using those 10 resellers. I also wanna talk more about how you funded the company, Bootstrap versus VC or not, and then also just more about how the hardware and software work together. Before we do that, though, I just wanna sure I get you... Have your growth sort of accurate. So if you're at a 1,500,000 run rate today in 2025, are you comfortable sharing what revenue was in 2024?

It was about point five.

Okay. And when was your first year revenue? When did you launch this thing?

Yeah. So this... What we are talking about now is our pivoted form of business. So we had an earlier life before the advent of virtual reality. We we built a lot of hardware ourselves. And we started in 2012. And...

That's when you were doing hardware.

Yes. And we then just before the pandemic, we had switched over to the, we pivoted to the software mode, which allowed customers in The US to buy the headsets off Amazon or wherever and then just load our software onto it. And we had to pivot because we were facing problems during the pandemic here in India with our revenues going close to zero because we were not able to ship these products out. And

our investors at that point of time were very India centric impact centered investors. So they wanted out, so we gave them an exit. So we... The promoters bought back the company. And then

What year was that? 2021?

Yes. 2021.

And how much did you have to pay them to buy them out?

We paid them... You know, I I I... Is is it okay if I don't disclose that amount?

Well... Oh, can you maybe share a range? There's other people listening that might wanna copy your strategy in terms of buying out some of their investors so they can learn from you.

Okay. So we we paid about 50% of what we had.

Okay. So they put in $2. You bought them out for a dollar?

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Got it. Got it. And, I mean, are we talking... Like, before that, had you raised, like, a... Like, I guess, how much are you raised? Was it

just an angel round or a series a, b, c? It was back then called a series a. It was $1,200,000, but back then... This is 2016. Back then, was called a series a. Now I see now I see seed rounds at $5,000,000. So

That was 2016, you said, the series a? Yeah. Okay. Got it. And that was... So the all in capital you had raised before you bought anyone out was 1,200,000 into the company?

Yes.

You bought them out for 50% of that amount in 2021 because your revenues crashed to zero because of COVID. You were pivoting, and then you scaled back up with your software product and hardware product in 2024 to 500 k of revenue. Now you're at a one... You expect to do about 1,500,000 today here in 2025.

Yep. That's correct.

Very cool. Very cool. And you're gonna stay bootstrapped going forward or any plans to raise?

So we're keeping it open right now for whatever business we have been pursuing right now with the current set of products. We don't want to raise money for that. But we are also looking at adding some adjacent products.

Can you just hold up the headset one more time there? This is the generic one people can buy on Amazon. Right? Yeah. They go. What's the brand? Can you put the logo to the camera? What's the brand called here?

So this has a Meta logo up here.

It is a... I don't It's the Meta. So it's the Meta VR headset. Yeah. What does that retail for?

So this one retails for about $500, but there is a $300 version that also works. This is a Pico headset. So we are kind of agnostic to the hardware. Okay.

So you... Just to be clear, you will work with any of these on my screen right now, Meta Quest. And then what's the other one? PECO? Yeah.

PECO virtual... This one? Yes. The ICO. Okay. Cool. So these are the two soft... The hardwares that you recommend to your audience, you know, the the the schools if they wanna get five units for their classroom. Yeah. Okay. Great. Very cool. So... And and no plans to move back into the hardware space. You already did that back in 2012, 2013 and realized you didn't wanna do that anymore, so you moved into software. Right?

We moved into software, and then we realized that there is a certain value to hardware as an accessory, as an upgrade. So then we came back to hardware, which we made it very differently. So earlier, had huge bulky hardware, but then now we have all these smaller ones, which. What is that?

What is that? What do you sell that for that you're holding right now?

So this one would sell for 2,500 one time. So they just pay it once, and they they have it forever.

And you're building that yourself? That's like an extension that works with your software on the MetaHeadset? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Interesting. So if a school is buying for their CT... You know, their their program, right, to train welders, right, or a community college, and they need five of those extension welding sets plus five headsets, they're gonna pay about five headsets times 500. A pop is 2,500, plus they need five of those welding extensions that you just

showed at. I think you said 2,500 a pop. Right? So that's 12,500. So now we're up to, like, $15. And then they spend about another $15 for an annual thing on your software. So it's about 30 k all in for a school to get started. Is that accurate?

Not necessarily. So what some schools do is to... The software would still work without the hardware extension. So they could still work with this. So they would buy five headsets, and then they may buy two or three of those, extensions. So they would get the beginners to work on just the controllers. And then as they progress on the lessons, they would get them the hardware extensions.

I see. Very interesting. Tell me more about about how you grew. Right? My audience loves growth stories that they maybe can learn from. You mentioned that you obviously found it in India. You've expanded in The US. You have large presence in The US, and you have that presence through using a reseller program. Some people will hire full time employees in India. Why did you go the reseller route, and how did you find those first 10 resellers?

So, word-of-mouth was how we found the resellers. So we we had a couple of resellers before, and, we found challenges with, onboarding of customers. So one of the one of the biggest challenges with a tech like this is that unless somebody wears it and then feels the immersive, method of how we are using this tool, it doesn't sound different from any of my competitors' products. So most of my competitors

have tech from maybe ten, fifteen years back. And so, for example, we use mixed reality quite a lot. So you wear the headset, you see virtual equipment in front of you, but you also see the surroundings. And you can walk around with the headset which is wireless. So some of these things, if we try to do without a reseller, what would happen is that they would think that

this is just like one of the competitor products, so they may not have had great success with that, So it can't be better than that is is a typical refrain we keep hearing. But the moment they wear the headset and try it, they are totally wowed.

So That all makes sense to me, Subari. My my specific question is how did you... How are you finding and incentivizing these resellers to sell your product? Can you maybe name, like what's the website of one of your top resellers in The US?

So there's one company called Learning Labs. So these are typically smaller companies which operate in three, four or five states.

This site Learning Labs?

No. Learning Labs. LLI is how they are called.

These guys?

Yeah. These guys.

Yes. Okay. So they heard about you. You're word-of-mouth. They said, love your product. You said, okay. Let's let's incentivize you. Why don't you sell more of our products into The US? Do... What... You know, you don't have to share their specific deal, but in general, how are you paying resellers to take the time to sell your product?

So typically we would handhold them. We would run some workshops to train them on how to demonstrate our product, how to highlight the benefits that this has over the other people. Also about, we have, different scales of how much effort they put and how much commission they make. So if if we are assisting them very actively, then the commission is less. But if if, they are doing it entirely on their own, which they have started doing now, then then they get a much higher commission.

What's the range? What's the low? What's the high?

So it could range from something like, three, 4% to as high as 20%.

So... Okay. Got it. So if one of these folks, you know, sells a $100,000 package and requires very little help from you, you might pay them, you know, 10, 11, 12, you know, to up to 20% potentially, $20,000 on a $100,000 sale.

Yeah.

I see. Very cool. And how many... You said there's 10 resellers like Learning Labs that you're working with?

Yes.

Okay. At what point do you go, man, it makes sense for me to put a body or two in a small office California and do this ourselves because we're paying our resellers so much in referral fees.

No. Actually, we find that we were early doing a lot more direct. Now we are switching back to have more and more resellers to do that. Mainly because US is a large country, even if we have an office in...

Whenever I'm in The US, I operate out of Dallas, and then I fly towards various parts of the country. But then we have prospective customers all over the country. We have three installations in Alaska, three schools in Alaska. So it's very difficult for us to, even if we are based in one central point, to fly to all the parts of the country and then do the sale. Especially if your sale volume is only $5,000 recurring, then your flight expenses itself might eat away all that. Okay.

That makes sense. The reseller model makes sense to me. We're about out of time. So let's wrap up here with some rapid fire stuff. First question I have is just on on on valuation. If someone came to you today, you know, you're doing 1.5 annually. Right? We didn't talk about profit or marginal or things like that, but we know that you own most of the company because you bought out your investors. But if someone came to you today and offered you $4,000,000 all cash up front to sell the business, would you exit?

No. I I see a lot of, growth right now. So like I said, I I would like to take you to 2,000 schools in the next two years, 8,000 schools in the next five years. So, I may be open to selling after five, six years. Not not right now.

Alright. Sounds good. Let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, favorite business book.

Most books by Peter Drucker or Elijah Gulrath.

That's a good one. Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying right now?

So there's a Indian urgent CEO who who started this company called Zoho. I don't know if you have heard of them, but...

Of course. The most successful bootstrap company in the world. Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building your business?

So internally, we use Unity for for creating on the virtual reality software. Mhmm. Recently, I've been playing around with Perplexity and some of the AI tools and seeing how can I make things faster than what I was doing before?

Yeah. Very good. And what's your situation today? Married, single, kiddos?

Married, no kids. Married, no kids. And how old are you? I'm 42.

Last question. Something you wish you knew when you were 20 years old.

So when I was 20, I was... Most of my twenties, I was working for somebody else, and I I was focusing on building stuff. And I started this company when I was 29. So, and then I realized that building is tough, but it is tougher to sell. It is tougher to have a financial way of thinking. So I wish the financial skills I had, or at least I knew the importance earlier on. I did pick up those on the go, but I I I could have paid more attention in business school.

Hey, guys. There you have it. Skillveri sells products to school systems to help them train their students on things like, you know, spray painting in an industrial way or, you know, all kinds of sort of specialized skill sets. They sell to community colleges as well. They'll do 1,500,000 of revenue this year, up from 500 k in 2024, so good growth. Launched in 2012 as a hardware company to 1,200,000 series a in 2016 before buying out his

investors at a discount in 2021 when his revenues went to zero because of COVID. Now he's on the rebound. He's selling fast in The US, already in a 100 schools. His go to market motion is he's leveraging 10 resellers in The US that he pays anywhere from 3% to 20% commission on sales. His plan is to expand to 2,000 plus schools over the next couple of years as he looks to continue to grow the business. Sorry. Sabari, thank you for taking us to the top.