Unstop, a hiring platform for students and recent graduates, has successfully raised $5 million in its first institutional funding round. The round was led by Japan-based job board Mynavi, and saw participation from Coursera, Venture Catalysts, 9Unicorns, and Pankaj Bansal (Caret Capital).
Growth Plans and Shark Tank Appearance
In a statement, Unstop revealed its intention to utilize the newly secured funds to expand its global presence. Interestingly, the startup gained significant attention after its appearance on Shark Tank India Season 2. During the show, it made headlines for rejecting a record-breaking INR 5 crore funding offer from CarDekho Group founder Amit Jain in exchange for a 10% equity stake.
Unstop Community Engagement Platform and Hiring Services
Founded in 2017 by Ankit Aggarwal, Unstop operates as both a community engagement platform and a hiring platform for some of India’s largest recruiters. Targeting recent graduates and final-year students, the platform allows users to learn, upskill, showcase their abilities, and receive job offers.
Unstop Impressive Reach and Course Offerings
Unstop has a talent community of around 6 million students from over 20,000 colleges. It attracts nearly 2 million monthly active users. The platform claims that over 800 companies, including major players like Flipkart, Amazon, Reliance, and Tata, hire from its community. Unstop offers online courses in domains like digital marketing, data science, programming, and business management. The course durations range from 20 hours to 2.5 months, and prices start from INR 999.
Focus on Real-Life Skills Testing and Skill Development Market Growth
Unstop prioritizes unique engagements to test students’ real-life skills, aiming to help companies find the right talent. The startup also seeks to enable brands to match their skill requirements while engaging and recruiting talent across multiple domains. Skill development is a rapidly growing edtech subsector, projected to reach a total market opportunity worth $2.5 billion, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30% between 2022 and 2030.
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