Uable Raises $3.5 Mn In Pre-Series A Round Led By JAFCO Asia And Chiratae Ventures The funds raised will be allocated towards building a global team and adding more real-world domains for teenagers to explore

Bengaluru-based real-world learning startup Uable for Gen Z on Wednesday announced that it has raised $3.5 million in a pre-Series A round led by JAFCO Asia and Chiratae Ventures. Existing investor 3one4 Capital also participated in this round. The company has launched a new-age learning platform exclusively for teenagers across the globe.

The latest round of funding will help Uable build a global team, scale the product globally and add more real-world domains for teenagers to explore. Supriya Singh, Director of South Asia investments, JAFCO Asia joins the board of Uable.

"At Uable, we are challenging the status quo of education, where for decades and possibly centuries, the notion that securing the highest marks, grades and degrees alone determined one's future and chances of success. However, we are here to change that notion and bring a paradigm shift in education. The way we are differentiated is that we are not about "test prep' or "course prep' but about "life prep'. We believe through the right guidance, mentorship, inspiration, and information, teenagers can discover that their passion can find a career path. We are excited to have on-board our new investors who are aligned with this vision of ours," said Saurabh Saxena, founder, and chief executive officer, Uable.

Founded in 2020 by Saurabh Saxena, (former co-founder, Vedantu) Uable is reimagining career discovery for GenZ and striving to help young learners find their passion. The company is focused on filling the glaring gaps existing in the current education system through real-world learning and preparing young learners across the globe for the future of work.

"I joined Uable first as a parent and then as an investor. Saurabh is a truly visionary leader who brings creativity with the responsibility to Uable's learning platform. Uable is building a unique peer-to-peer learning platform for children, which will truly empower them with the right mix of skill development, creativity, and self-confidence. A platform like Uable is what education in the 21st century should be," stated Supriya Singh, director of South Asia investments, JAFCO Asia.

The platform will empower teens between 13 and 18 years of age to discover and design their own career pathways in the 21st-century domains including but not limited to AI, climate change, gig economy, spacetech, and robotics. They will get an opportunity to immerse themselves in real-world experiences, learn from peers and receive mentorship from global domain experts.

"While edtech based learning has been democratized and digitized in recent years, the focus on real-world applicability and building of practical use cases and skills for children has remained largely at the periphery. Buoyed by the changes brought about in 2020, building a global-first platform while keeping in mind this ethos is at the heart of Saurabh's vision for Uable and we're excited about taking it from India to the world," mentioned Karan Mohla, partner, Chiratae Ventures Advisors,

According to UNICEF, over half of the Indian students will not have skills for 21st-century jobs. It warns, in India, as many as 53 per cent will leave secondary school without getting the skills needed for a decent job. However, youth unemployment is not just an Indian problem but a global phenomenon, the industry worldwide is witnessing a strong mismatch between the frameworks/ skills required by the real world and the ones being learned by students. This glaring industry-academia gap offers an immense opportunity for models like Uable to bring early-intervention and prepare teenagers for the future.

"We have been working with Saurabh ever since he began work on his next idea in edtech. His incredible passion for ensuring quality and focus on building a scalable peer learning model focused on the overall development of teenagers is something that aligns with our focus in this space. We are excited to partner with Uable for building an educational paradigm that focuses on measurable development at scale and enables a whole new generation to learn the skills of the future," added Anurag Ramdasan, head, investments, 3one4 Capital.

Uable has raised a total of $4.5 million since its inception in 2020 and is backed by Jafco Asia, Chirate Ventures, 3one4 Capital, Global Founders Capital, and a clutch of angel investors including Pine Labs' Amrish Rau, Jupiter's Jitendra Gupta (Ex-Pay U), Inflection Point Ventures, Angel List, Better Capital, Patni Wealth Advisors amongst others.