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Edtech startup CareerNinja on Tuesday said it raised an undisclosed pre-seed round from Unitus Ventures.

Founded by Shronit Ladhani in 2017, CareerNinja provides upskilling and job-oriented courses for college graduates. The startup claims that its AI-powered edtech platform allows for segmentation and makes it personalised.

Besides, the customers on the platform also get one-on-one mentorship with industry experts, opportunities to work on guided projects, personalised doubt solving, a dedicated student success manager, and guaranteed placement.

Speaking on the funding, Shronit said, “The company uses ML (machine learning) and NLP (natural language processing) models and frameworks to make learning more personalised and interactive while bringing down the cost.”

The startup claims to have grown 6X in six months and has over 20,000 registered customers.

It is aiming to reach one million learners by 2022, and the funding will be used towards developing its product, team, and technology.

According to CareerNinja, a nationwide employability report showed that graduating students had only a 20 percent employability in the present knowledge economy. Further, 48 percent of Indian employers had challenges in filling job vacancies due to talent shortages.

Today, businesses are looking to reduce their workforce due to technology integration even as others are looking to hire more people who possess digital skills.

Surya Mantha, Senior Partner, Unitus Ventures, said, “Business needs are changing rapidly and hiring needs are constantly evolving to keep up. The roots of underemployment in our country are deep. One way to address this is to make upskilling affordable and outcome-focused for the millions in India’s workforce. CareerNinja aligns with our outlook and investment thesis to create meaningful solutions to address this problem at scale.”

Unitus Ventures, which is based in Bengaluru and Seattle, supports early-stage fintech, healthcare, and job-tech startups.