Unstop Raises $5 Mn From Japan’s Mynavi To Help Students, Freshers Get Jobs

Unstop, a hiring platform for students and graduates, has raised $5 Mn in its first institutional round led by Japan-based job board Mynavi. Coursera, Venture Catalysts, 9Unicorns and Pankaj Bansal (Caret Capital) also participated in the funding round.

In a statement, the startup said it plans to deploy the funds to grow Unstop’s global presence.

Interestingly, Unstop also appeared on Shark Tank India Season 2 and made headlines after turning down CarDekho Group founder Amit Jain’s record-breaking INR 5 Cr funding offer in exchange for a 10% equity stake in the company.

Founded in 2017 by Ankit Aggarwal, Unstop is a community engagement platform that also doubles up as a hiring platform for some of the biggest recruiters in India. Users, generally recent graduates and final-year students can learn, upskill, showcase their skills and get job offers on the platform.

The startup claims to have a talent community of around 6 Mn students from 20,000+ colleges and attract nearly 2 Mn monthly active users. It claims that 800+ companies, including the likes of Flipkart, Amazon, Reliance and Tata, hire from its community.

Unstop offers multiple online courses for students looking to upskill, across domains such as digital marketing, data science and data analytics, programming and development and business and management.

The courses start with a time frame of 20 hours and the cost starts from INR 999, with some of its longer courses being priced at INR 25,999 for as much as 2.5 months of classes. 

On the engagement front, Unstop offers one-on-one mentorship opportunities, practice tests for some of the most popular recruiters and job openings and competitions sponsored by companies such as Xiaomi India, Accenture, Flipkart and the Aditya Birla Group, among others.

Commenting on the fundraise, Ankit Aggarwal, founder and CEO of Unstop, said, “Technology platforms may become interchangeable; however, building a community and ecosystem takes ages. This funding is a significant milestone for Unstop as our investors form a unique blend, coming together from various parts of the world and different domains and supporting us in our journey with their vote of confidence on our robust proposition.”

Unstop aims to ensure companies find the right talent through unique engagements that focus on testing students’ real-life skills. The startup also aims to enable brands to match their skills requirements while engaging and recruiting talent across multiple domains.

Hidekazu Ito, MD of Mynavi Solution India, commented, “Mynavi is dedicated to addressing challenges in India, investing in startups for HR and education. Supporting Unstop can make our vision a reality to work towards bridging skill gaps for freshers and professionals. We are excited to collaborate as a major HR provider in Japan and expand Unstop.”

While Unstop does not directly compete with any companies in India, it indirectly pits itself against the likes of upGrad, Simplilearn, Jaro Education, Scalar and Masai School.

According to Inc42’s ‘Inside India’s $29 Bn+ Edtech Opportunity’ report, skill development is the fastest-growing edtech subsector and is set to become a total market opportunity worth $2.5 Bn, growing at a CAGR of 30% between 2022 and 2030.