· Mindler, the ed tech start-up will utilise the funds towards expansion of the team, entering new geographies and forming institutional partnerships and alliances.
· Ecosystem Ventures, Inflection Point Ventures, nVentures Singapore and The Chennai Angels are prominent investors in the recent round of funding.
· Mindler provides a SaaS platform for educators and ed-tech partners along with a comprehensive career guidance platform for students.
New Delhi, NFAPost: Mindler, a comprehensive career guidance platform for students and educators has 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.
Mindler Founder & CEO Prateek Bhargava said the company is excited to have closed our Pre-Series A round and extend gratitude to our investors for their support and belief in its 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,” said Prateek Bhargava.
Prateek Bhargava said the company is driving a movement to enable students to take a scientific approach towards career decision making.
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 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 10x within the next calendar year but also aims to make some strategic collaborations.
New Delhi-based 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% 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’.
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).
Mindler’s International Certification and Credentialing (ICCC) Program for educators saw over 475% 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 ed-tech start-up.
Ecosystem Ventures Cofounder Abhishek Sanghvi said selecting a 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 counsellors to provide timely guidance to students,” said Abhishek Sanghvi.
With a great team, Abhishek Sanghvi said Mindler believes that it is set to become India’s largest venture providing a complete ecosystem to students for Career Guidance.
SKCL TCA Member & MD Meera Reddy said 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,” said Meera Reddy.
nVentures Pte Ltd Founding Partner/CEO Ashok Verma said nVentures believes 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 & counselling 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,” said Ashok Verma.
IPV Cofounder Mitesh Shah shared 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 back 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,” said Mitesh Shah.
Mitesh Shah 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.
In a market where 99% schools lack a career guidance setup, 1.5+ million career coaches are needed and over 92% students seek scientific career guidance; a platform like Mindler is the need of the hour.
About Mindler:
Mindler is a venture conceptualised and run by the alumni of ISB, IIT, IIM, Harvard and the world’s preeminent psychometricians. The Mindler platform equips students, counsellors and schools to have a career planning platform which is future-ready and empowers all the concerned stakeholders with state-of-the-art technology, driven by machine learning algorithms and in-depth analytics.
Mindler has been awarded and commended by the Ministry of Science & Technology (Government of India), Ministry of State (UAE Government), Entrepreneur India, ISB D-Labs, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Department for Promotion of Industry & Internal Trade, Education World, Business World, HolonIQ, Economic Times and CIIE at IIM Ahmedabad.
