Chennai, India-based Skill-Lync, an online education company is developing a service that helps India’s estimated 1.5 million mechanical engineering graduates to further develop their education into the skill sets that employers in the U.S. seek. The company is part of the Y Combinator, a startup fund based in Mountain View, CA, which invests in early start-up companies and develops the entrepreneurs that run them.
In March 2019, Skill-Lync received an initial seed funding of $150,000 from the Y Combinator program. Over the next two years, the company expects to build out its education program to accommodate 30,000 students, expand into curriculum that covers chemical engineering and biotech, and receive an additional funding of $5 million.
Skill-Lync started out as a YouTube channel to share engineering tips, but today it operates three different types of online courses, ranging from one-off modules to full-time curricula. The company is launching a new and more comprehensive course that guarantees a job at the end of it or else participants get a full refund. “We believe that education is like a product,” founder Paneerselvam said. “In the same way that you buy a product from Amazon but if it doesn’t work you can return it for a refund.”
The company is also preparing to launch a similar program for U.S.-based students in June 2019, since they currently account for 10 percent of monthly course enrollments.
Last updated: December 26th, 2025
