VC-funded edtech firm Mindler buys out virtual career internship startup Immrse

Mindler, a career guidance platform for students and educators, has acquired Immrse, a virtual career internship and simulation platform in a cash and stock deal.  

Mindler, operated by Delhi-based Mindler Education Pvt Ltd, had recently raised its pre-Series funding round led by Ecosystem Ventures, Inflection Point Ventures, nVentures Singapore and Chennai Angels. Through this deal, Mindler will be focusing on making virtual career internships accessible to school and college students via schools/ institutions, career counsellors and ed-tech partners.    

“Through our pilot project we discovered that 98.7% students found the experience really useful and we are excited to jointly build many more virtual career internships in the near future,” said Prateek Bhargava, founder and CEO at Mindler.  

Virtual career internships allow students to deep dive into multiple conventional and new-age careers including engineering, medicine, film making, graphic designing, law, psychology, ethical hacking among others. Immrse claims to have offered services to around 10,000 students from class 8-12, and collaborated with over 100 counsellors and ed-tech companies.  

“This product encompasses new-age career simulations that help students understand career options practically before finalising the right career for themselves. This product was built as a solution to the career decision-related problems and confusion that crores of students are facing in today’s era,” said Pratham Sutaria, founder, Immrse.  

Founded in July 2015, Mindler is a tech-enabled ecosystem for career planning and development for students, and aims to empower all stakeholders in the student career decision-making journey. It also offers a SaaS platform for educators and edtech partners to create their own career guidance ecosystem.  

The deal is likely to be closed in next three months. Post the completion, Mindler will also aim to offer a wide range of practical programmes to students including corporate internships and experiential masterclasses. 

The edtech market has witnessed frenetic funding and M&A activity in India since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic last year.     

Byju’s, the most valued startup in India, has struck eight acquisitions so far this year. It has been on a buying spree and has shelled out over $2.2bn in acquisitions, this year alone.  It acquired online exam preparation platform Gradeup for an undisclosed sum, higher education platform Great Learning for $600 million, kids’ digital reading platform Epic for $500 million, and test preparation provider Aakash Educational Services for $1 billion in quick succession.    

Earlier this month, edtech unicorn Unacademy announced that it has acquired online tuition platform Swiflearn for an undisclosed amount.