The world of online learning has become increasingly crowded and nowadays prospective coding students have been left with more options than they can choose from. San Francisco-based edtech platform Career Karma wants to help.
The career navigation platform aims to connect job seekers with a myriad of online coding bootcamps and tech education opportunities. In addition to that, the platform also provides job seekers with support and guidance from peers, coaches and mentors in small groups, or “squads.” Over the last 12 months, Career Karma has placed over 3,000 people into job training programs, according to the company.
The company announced Wednesday that it raised $10 million in a Series A round led by Initialized Capital to further its goal of making tech education accessible to the masses.
The company was one of five chosen to be part of a founding cohort by Reforge Partners. As a result, the firm will help Career Karma establish a scalable growth strategy over the next year.
Following the raise, the company plans to expand its team. Career Karma is now hiring for several open positions across teams.
“The ability to use computer software and its capacity to provide even more refined tools that millions of people can access easily in order to continue to do their jobs has rapidly become essential for everyone,” Ruben Harris, co-founder and CEO of Career Karma, said in a statement.
In 2014, Harris left his job as an investment banker in Atlanta and made his way to Silicon Valley with hopes of breaking into tech.
Two years later, Harris, along with his future co-founders Artur and Timur Meyster started a podcast that featured interviews with people who broke into the tech scene without a college degree.
The podcast led the three of them to consider how they could help others in the field upskill and land the job that they dreamed of. Career Karma, founded in 2018, set out to achieve just that.
“What has become clear now is that the need to produce even more products that improve upon what we already had is critical, and our needs show no sign of diminishing in the near future,” Harris said.
The platform now attracts more than one million users to its platform every month, according to the company.
“It’s clear that education is fundamental for every worker. [We] have the experience to help them determine how to more precisely decide which programs they need to compare based on their current goals,” Harris said.
Career Karma’s directory features 450 bootcamps and 7,000 trade schools, colleges, and universities, according to the company.
