New Delhi, Sep 29 (IANS): IT major HCL on Thursday said it has acquired a majority stake in vernacular edtech platform GUVI -- one of the few companies in India to partner with Elon Musk's 'OpenAI' initiative -- for an undisclosed sum.

The IIT Madras and CIIE (IIM Ahmedabad) incubated startup offers technical courses such as web development, AI module, SQL and various other courses created by industry experts in vernacular languages.

"Through this investment, the aim is to address the critical technical skill-gap across enterprises," said Shikhar Malhotra, Director-HCL Corporation.

"We are delighted to associate with GUVI to ensure that technology aspirants have ease-of-access to learning and upskilling via holistic courses in the native language they are comfortable conversing in," added Malhotra.

Founded by Arun Prakash M, Sridevi M and SP Balamurugan in 2014,

GUVI provides tailor-made courses for learners, universities and employers.

GUVI offers computer programming courses in Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam, Tamil, English and Arabic.

"We believe this association will be a game-changer for the edtech space servicing audiences in their mother tongue. Also, leveraging HCL's global network, we are looking forward to empowering a large pool of professionals," said Prakash, Co-Founder and CEO of GUVI.

To date, GUVI has upskilled more than 1.7 million students and professionals in the latest technology skills and helped them gain placement across sectors.