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Gurgaon-based job credentialing platform, Aspiring Minds, has set up a fund of $1 Mn (about Rs 6.5 crore) to provide seed investment to startups in education and employment technology companies.
Besides providing capital, Aspiring Minds is also willing to incubate these companies for a fixed time duration, if required.
Started in 2007 by brothers Himanshu Aggarwal and Varun Aggarwal, Aspiring Minds, is an employability evaluation and certification company that helps institutions and companies choose the right candidate. Its flagship product, AMCAT, is widely-taken employability test helps over 2 million candidates find the ‘right’ jobs every year.
The company is backed by state-of-the-art, adaptive assessment technology and machine learning algorithms – it allows adaptive, standardized and reliable measurement of generic employability skills (language, cognitive, behavior) and a wide range of functional skills using simulated assessments. Currently, its has presence in the US, China, Philippines, Middle East and South East Asia.
The funds is said to be invested in 12 to 18 months, focusing on technology driven companies that are developing innovative solutions using mobile technology and data science to address inefficiencies in the education and labor market.
The objective of the fund is to provide market access, execution advice and capital to the companies operating in this space. The investment will predominantly be focused on India, China and the US.
Speaking on the development, Himanshu Aggarwal, co-founder & CEO at Aspiring Minds, said, “While there is demand and innovation, the education & recruitment ecosystem is not getting its due success. The problem has been the barriers to entry in the market coupled with complicated execution. We work with millions of students and job seekers and clearly see a wide range of addressable gaps. Hence, we want to encourage companies which match disruptive innovation solutions like ours to build capabilities in the education and employment technology space.”
The startups under the fund will benefit from the leadership and execution capabilities of the Aspiring Minds’ team, its advisory board and be able to make use of Aspiring Minds’ extensive market reach.
“We have completed a part of the puzzle by providing credible assessments to meet the ever growing job-skills paradox. We believe that mobile products and data science can now make it viable to efficiently solve the problems that exist in these sectors. With the launch of this fund, we are looking to fill the gaps in the ecosystem and add more value to the labor market.” said Varun Aggarwal, co-founder & CTO at Aspiring Minds.
Earlier, Aspiring Minds acquired a mobile software development company, Mizcoin, to reach more job seekers and work together on product research and development in order to enhance Aspiring’s mobile product strategy.
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