Bengaluru Based Career Advice Platform TapChief Raises Funding From Paytm, Others

Bengaluru-based TapChief has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Paytm, TaxiForSure founder Aprameya Radhakrishna; Fisdom founder Subramanya Venkat; and Venk Krishnan of NuVentures among others.

Founded in 2016 by BITS Pilani alumni Shashank Murali, Binay Krishna, & Arjun Krishna, TapChief, is a platform to seek advice for students and startups from industry experts.

TapChief CEO Shashank Murali said, “There is a strong onus on skill development across sectors due to the rapid pace at which the industry is evolving. Our vision is to break the numerous barriers in knowledge sharing through this thriving open community of help-seekers & experts across the globe.”

The startup offers a cohesive platform to discover and schedule calls with experts to get advice across domains. According to a company statement, TapChief currently facilitates career & business advice with any of the 5,000 listed experts on the platform. These experts include CEOs, entrepreneurs, consultants & senior executives from over 2000+ organisations.

Students can also opt for the Job Coach programme where they get trained for job interviews and placements by professionals from a company of their choice. Every expert can set their own consultation charges and TapChief charges a fixed commission on every paid consultation on the platform.

Founder Shashank elaborated that about 40% of the experts on the platform do the discussions on a pro-bono basis, while the experts who do charge for their time usually donate their earnings to charitable organisations and NGOs through TapChief. The startup claims to have witnessed over 50,000 minutes worth of interactions on TapChief.

Earlier in April 2016, TapChief was announced as the winner of the MindBatteries, Chase Your Dreams – Ideathon’ Contest and took $150K funding from Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma.

Other startups in the space include recently launched LinkedIn Placements, Delhi-based counselling & education services firm, Careers360, iDreamCareer, etc.