Springboard Bags $9.5 Million Fund From Costanoa Ventures

US and India-based online education startup Springboard, which offers professional courses, has raised $9.5 million (Rs 62 crore) in a Series A funding round.

The round was led by US-based early-stage venture capital firm Costanoa Ventures, with Learn Capital and Appdynamics founder Jyoti Bansal taking part. Existing investors Blue Fog Capital, Rocketship.vc and Moneta Ventures invested, too, the startup said in a statement.

Springboard, operated by SlideRule Labs Inc.plans to use the funds to expand into new verticals and regions, especially in India. It also plans to invest in technology that enables personalised learning and build an alumni community.

Springboard co-founder gautam Tambey said “Millennials are likely to have 15 jobs with four to five career changes through their working lives. But options to make those life-changing shifts either involve leaving your job to go to graduate school or relying on online classes with no support. Costanoa’s venture partner Mark Selcow will join the board of Springboard as part of the funding round

Jyoti Bansal, who sold Appdynamics to Cisco earlier this year for $3.7 billion, said Springboard’s online, distributed model is scalable globally and across industries.

The company offers one-on-one mentoring and professional online courses for early and mid-level professionals in data science, UX design, digital marketing and other new-economy fields where demand for talent exceeds supply.

It claims to have a model that pairs each student with an industry mentor, who provides real-world context, frequent feedback and career advice, resulting in higher completion rates than Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and other online courses.

Springboard claims it has educated more than 7,000 students in its intensive three-to-six months courses and has students and alumni in nearly 80 countries. The company has more than 350 professional mentors from companies ranging from Amazon and Airbnb to Uber and McKinsey.