Mindler Raises $1.5 Mn Pre-Series A Funding The startup plans to further strengthen its platform with the objective of shaping the entire career guidance ecosystem, with this fundraise
By Prabhjeet Bhatla •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
New-Delhi-based comprehensive career guidance platform for students and educators Mindler, on Monday, announced to have closed a $1.5 million pre-Series A funding round led by Ecosystem Ventures, Inflection Point Ventures (IPV), nVentures Singapore, and Chennai Angels towards augmenting its team, geographical expansion, and institutional partnerships and alliances.
With this fund raise, Mindler plans to further strengthen its platform with the objective of shaping the entire career guidance ecosystem. Mindler now has investors from the USA, Singapore, Middle East, and India hence strengthening the company's effort to expand globally. With this new round of funding, Mindler not only plans to grow tenfold within the next calendar year but also aims to make some strategic collaborations.
"We are excited to have closed our Pre-Series A round and extend gratitude to our investors for their support and belief in our vision and work. Despite many challenges, the last 15 months have been phenomenal for us. It has been a landmark year for Mindler especially in terms of collaborations and we are geared towards increasing the same in the next few quarters. We are focusing on both the demand and supply side of the career guidance landscape and thus creating a sustainable model for long term client engagement and retention. We are driving a movement to enable students to take a scientific approach towards career decision making," said Prateek Bhargava, founder, and chief executive officer, Mindler.
Mindler registered 2020 as a landmark year by growing its collaborations and partnerships, transforming its in-school career guidance programs, and experienced more than 90 per cent client retention. It also launched a SaaS platform for educators and ed-tech partners to create their own career guidance ecosystem. In its effort to empower students during the pandemic, Mindler also launched several new student-first initiatives like the Mindler "Scholarship Hunt' and Mindler "Internship Program'.
"Selecting the right college and course continues to be the most complex decision of the life for any student. Parents often pay huge costs to get the right career guidance and help in admissions. With 1.2 crore students completing 12th every year, this is a massive problem with no organized player. Mindler is using AI algorithms, psychometric testing, and an army of certified counselors to provide timely guidance to students. With a great team, we believe that Mindler is set to become India's largest venture providing a complete ecosystem to students for career guidance," shared Abhishek Sanghvi, co-founder, Ecosystem Ventures.
"In today's fast-paced world, choosing a career path is a huge challenge for young minds. Mindler's comprehensive platform is supporting them in choosing the right career using a simplified process that superiorly blends AI, machine learning, and human intervention for assured success. We look forward to seeing the Mindler team scaling great heights, as they help young individuals across the nation," commented Meera Reddy, TCA member and managing director, SKCL.
In the largely unregulated career guidance market, Mindler is working towards creating and certifying career coaches through a multi-level credentialing program in collaboration with National Career Development Association (USA) and Career Development Alliance (USA).
"We at nVentures believe in empowering the new age founder who would create a positive impact on society. We find Mindler is one of them with their comprehensive career guidance & counseling platform which is a game-changer for students. We believe that Auroscholar will accelerate their journey by giving them unparalleled access of students, powered by micro-scholarships on a single platform," explained Ashok Verma, founding partner, and chief executive officer, nVentures Pte Ltd.
Mindler's International Certification and Credentialing (ICCC) Program for educators saw over 475 per cent increase with a huge number of educators taking to career guidance; in order to bridge the gap of over 1.5 million career coaches to cater to the needs of the current number of students. The company further plans to accelerate the growth of its alumni pool of over 20,000 certified career coaches across the globe. Taxmann Group and CIIE IIM Ahmedabad are other notable investors in the edtech startup.
"This year marks the rise of many exciting startups in one of the fastest-growing segments in the start-up ecosystem - Edtech. IPV is excited to partner with one such unique story in this space - Mindler and backs their growth journey. With its cutting-edge product, deep relationships with schools, and above all its dynamic founding team, Mindler is solving a genuine problem in a very efficient way and has penetrated really well amongst career aspirants. IPV with its vast investor base of CXOs from diverse industries including Edtech, will help Mindler access a largely unexplored market base and expand its network exponentially while enhancing the tech capabilities as well," added Mitesh Shah, co-founder, IPV.
In a market where 99 per cent of schools lack a career guidance setup, over 1.5 million career coaches are needed, and over 92 per cent of students seek scientific career guidance; a platform like Mindler is the need of the hour, the platform said.
