Geekster, a career-focused tech education platform, has raised $1.30 million in a Pre-Series A round led by Inflection Point Ventures.
MyNavi Corporation, Japan, and existing investors We Founder Circle and ah! Ventures also participated in the round. With this round, the Gurugram-based startup has raised a total of $1.5 million.
Founded in October 2020 by Ankit Maggu and Sahil Miglani, Geekster is an online career accelerator that helps engineers skill up for the best tech jobs and realize their true potential. It provides an integrated platform where students get trained on in-demand skills by industry experts, while also enabling employers to access top-quality vetted talent through data-driven matching algorithms. Geekster does not charge any fee for the course until students they land a well-paying job.
Speaking about the platform and how the new funding will help the company, Ankit Maggu, Co-Founder of Geekster, said,
“We are on a mission to democratize quality education & career opportunities; aiming to make a million graduates work ready in next few years. Our offering has witnessed great response from the Students & Employer Partners alike and we shall be working aggressively to scale our operations in the next few months. We are fortunate to have associated with marquee investors who are equally excited about the opportunity and are aligned with our vision for Geekster.”
Geekster plans to utilize the new fund raised towards expanding its team and portfolio of its offerings, adding new programmes, and building scalable learning and hiring platforms.
Talking about Geekster, Ankur Mittal, Co-Founder, Inflection Point Ventures, said,
“Gone are the days when a graduate certificate would be more than enough to secure a job in your respective field. With the growing competition, job seekers are expected to be more skilled to be a cut above the rest. Geekster has been successful in designing a tech education platform with its unique model of skilling which allows tech graduates to hone their skills at zero cost until they get a paying job. And at the same time, it engages industry professionals as educators on the platform keeping the content relevant and practical. The company has won the trust of leading companies to hire highly skilled tech workforce and IPV looks forward to further scaling this platform and creating a pool of talented and top-notch industry-ready professionals.”
Hidekazu Ito, MyNavi Corporation, added,
“With an aim to contribute towards the upliftment of India’s Education and Human Resource space, we identified that many university students face economic difficulties in paying tuition fees, living costs, and other financial obligations, which is a challenge for their careers. Geekster is addressing the challenge very well, and by supporting Geekster we together will be able to achieve our common goals.”
Geekster claims to currently help 300+ companies hire the right tech talent for their teams including some top product-based companies, MNCs, and well-funded startups, and has been able to achieve 10X growth in the last 8 months.
Saurabh Deo, Co-founder, We Founder Circle, also commented,
“We are glad to be participating in another round in Geekster. It is weaved around a unique model which is solving problems on two sides- corporates and students. Thus, it has been able to bridge the skill gap in the industry. The platform has been performing well over the period, which motivated us to participate again in the fundraise. With its USP, strong team, and market scope in place, the brand is poised for a splendid growth.”
Geekster raised $200,000 in its pre-seed funding round in May last year led by We Founder Circle with participation from ah! Ventures. In March this year, the tech career accelerator partnered with 200 companies to enable easy talent acquisition for employers and job placements for its students.
