Career guidance platform for students and educators Mindler has raised a $1 Million Pre-Series A round led by Inflection Point Ventures, one of the largest angel investment platforms in India.
The newly raised funds will be utilised towards expanding Mindler’s base of institutional partnerships and alliances. As part of its growth chart for 2021, Mindler now plans to further strengthen its platform with the objective of shaping the entire career guidance ecosystem.
Keeping its growth momentum high, Mindler registered 2020 as the landmark year by growing its collaborations and partnerships, transforming its in-school career guidance programs completely and saw over 90% client retention in 2020.
Mindler’s International Certification and Credentialing Program for educators saw over 400% increase with a huge number of educators taking to career guidance in order to bridge the gap of over 1.5 million career coaches in India. The company further plans to accelerate the growth of its alumni pool of over 10,000 certified career coaches across the globe. Taxmann Group and CIIE IIM Ahmedabad are other notable investors in the ed-tech startup.
Founded by Prateek Bhargava, a double MBA from Indian School of Business Hyderabad & MDI Gurgaon, Mindler aims to shape the career guidance landscape while empowering all stakeholders in the student career decision making journey. Apart from a comprehensive career guidance platform for students, Mindler also offers a SaaS platform for educators and ed-tech partners to create their own career guidance ecosystem.
In the largely unregulated career guidance market, Mindler is also 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).
IPV Co-Founder Mitesh Shah said, “This year marks the rise of many exciting startups in one of the fastest growing segments in startup ecosytem- Edtech. IPV is excited to partner with one such unique story in this space – Mindler and back its growth journey.”
He added, “With their 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 very well amongst career aspirants. IPV with its vast investor base of CXOs from diverse industries including Edtech, will help Mindler access a large unexplored market base and expand its network exponentially while enhancing the tech capabilities as well.”
Mindler Founder Prateek Bhargava said, “We are very excited to have the support from IP Ventures and their network of C-Suite leaders from across the globe. Apart from Inflection Point Ventures, we are also in final stage talks with a few HNIs for this round.”
He added, “Despite all its challenges, 2020 has been a phenomenal year for us. It has been a landmark year for us especially in terms of collaborations and we are all geared towards increasing the same in the coming year. 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.”
During the pandemic, the company also launched a new initiative called the Mindler Scholarship Hunt to support students in these testing times. Mindler Scholarship Hunt, a one-of-its-kind scholarship hunt creates an opportunity for 12th grade students from over 1,000 schools from India and the Middle East and intends to offer scholarships worth Rs 25 crore up across leading Indian Universities. Launched in collaboration with Afairs Exhibitions and Education World in December 2020, the initiative was inaugurated by Gerry Arathoon (Chief Executive-CISCE).
