Masai School, a 21st-century career-focused coding school, has raised $5 million in a Series A funding round led by Omidyar Network India.
Existing investors Unitus Ventures, India Quotient, and AngelList India also participated in the new funding round.
Started in 2019, Masai School is on a mission to find untapped or underutilized talent and to train them for the most in-demand jobs in the world. The startup claims to introduce a new model of higher education in which the school invests in the students, instead of the other way around. Masai offers job-ready courses created by industry leaders, enabling students to learn relevant skills and build successful careers out of them. Currently, it trains tech aspirants in full-stack web and android applications development.
Students at Masai School have to go through a 7-month-long bootcamp where they are taught the basics of coding as well as given hands-on training to develop an app. The company has so far graduated over 200 students and is on track to graduate more than 2000 students in the financial year 2021-2022.
Masai School integrates the Income Sharing Agreement (ISA) or "Study Now and Pay Later" approach and starts charging students only after they get a job and received their first paycheck of INR 5 lakh per annum and above.
Prateek Shukla, Co-founder and CEO, Masai School, said,
“Year after year, India produces lakhs of graduates, of which a very small percentage are actually employable. On the other hand, the burgeoning industry struggles to find relevant entry-level talent, which clearly implies that the root of the problem lies in the existing education system. We are building Masai with a clear focus to enable youth to launch careers in a field of their choice.”
“This funding comes at a time when we are progressing to the next level, transitioning from our business model of being a coding-centric to a career-focused institute. To provide equal opportunity, Masai School doesn’t ask for any degree, and neither does it filter by stream of secondary education. We have helped more than 200 students launch their full-time careers in the technology industry; more than 50 percent of them came from a non-computer science background,” Shukla added.
The Bengaluru-headquartered startup plans to use the latest funding to launch new programs in UI and UX designing, product management, and data analytics, in addition to strengthening the existing offerings of full-stack web and Android Development. The company also plans to use the funds to hire leading industry experts and teaching practitioners.
Masai School had raised $2.5 million in its Pre-Series A round in August 2020, led by Unitus Ventures and joined by India Quotient and AngelList India.
