From $500K to $1.5M ARR: Bootstrapping VR SaaS for Trade Skills
SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
Nathan Latka
4.6 • 701 Ratings
🗓️ 31 December 2025
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sabari Nair, co-founder and CEO of Skillveri, joins Nathan to break down how he's scaling a VR-powered vocational training platform to $1.5M ARR today, serving 100+ schools in the U.S., with $350K enterprise contracts — and why he believes immersive training plus SaaS pricing is the future of skilled labor education.
In this episode, Sabari explains how Skillveri combines VR software subscriptions, hardware add-ons, and a reseller-led GTM motion to win in a category traditionally dominated by $30K+ one-time simulation vendors.
You'll learn:
— How Skillveri sells VR training software starting at $4K/year per school
— Why their largest customer pays $350K annually (and how they plan to reach $1M contracts)
— The SaaS + hardware hybrid model driving 60% recurring revenue
— Why schools (not industry) are the wedge into a massive skills market
— How reseller partnerships replaced direct sales across the U.S.
— The commission structure that motivates resellers without killing margins
— Why in-person demos beat cold pitches for immersive tech
— How VR + mixed reality creates objective skill grading (welding, painting, more)
— The COVID pivot that forced a full reset — and buying out investors at a discount
— Why Sabari turned down a $4M all-cash acquisition offer
— The roadmap to $10M ARR by expanding to 2,000+ schools
Sabari started the company in 2012 building hardware, pivoted hard into software during the pandemic, bought out early investors in 2021, and rebuilt the business into a capital-efficient SaaS with hardware upsells. Today, Skillveri runs on a lean team, supports Meta Quest and Pico headsets, and is redefining how skilled trades are taught globally.
Whether you're a B2B SaaS founder, hardware-plus-software operator, investor exploring edtech, or operator designing reseller GTM motions, this episode is a masterclass in enterprise pricing, channel strategy, and scaling immersive technology without burning cash.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What are your largest software contracts there? |
| 0:02.6 | Currently, it's a 350K for the largest contract. |
| 0:05.3 | There are very costly methods to rate how you welded or how you painted separately on the field. |
| 0:11.1 | 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 create them objectively on how well they have painted or how well they have welding. Someone came to you today and offered you $4 million all cash up front to sell the business. Would you exit? No. I see a lot of growth right now. Hey folks, my guest today is Sabari Ner. He is the co-founder and CEO of SkillVary, |
| 0:39.2 | VRI.com, where they're redefining vocational training through XR simulations. He started his career |
| 0:45.1 | in deep tech before moving into product management, and now he's building immersive solutions |
| 0:49.1 | to bridge global skill gaps. He's also the prime minister's champions of change panel on that panel on |
| 0:54.9 | ed tech and skills. Sabar, are you ready to take us to the top? Yes. So take us in the product |
| 1:01.7 | first. I'm going to share a screen here and go to your website, but tell us what we're looking at here. |
| 1:06.0 | What does the company sell? What do you do? So we sell virtual reality and mixed reality |
| 1:10.7 | simulations that run on either a meta quest |
| 1:15.6 | or a PICO headset together with... |
| 1:18.6 | Hold that up close to the camera so the audience can see it. |
| 1:20.6 | I didn't realize you had an example. |
| 1:22.6 | Yeah. |
| 1:23.6 | Very cool. |
| 1:24.6 | So it's like a VR set. |
| 1:25.6 | It is, but you could parake up with real world tools like a spray pinching gun or welding gun. |
| 1:35.0 | That's awesome. |
| 1:36.2 | So are you mainly then selling to, you know, companies that do a lot of welding who are onboarding and training hundreds of employees? |
| 1:43.0 | Yes, we have two major channels, I would say. |
| 1:46.8 | We have the industry which does their own in-house training for their staff, but we also |
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