When we last caught up with Thinkful, a New York-based technology education company, it was dabbling in adding offline lessons to its curriculum.
This week, the startup announced it raised $4.25 million, in a round led by Floodgate Fund, and has plans to more directly help its students find new jobs.
Thinkful offers primarily online education in technology fields, with software engineers as one-on-one mentors. CEO Darrell Silver says most students who use Thinkful already work full-time jobs and want to advance their careers or pursue new paths in technology.
The latest funding for the startup, he says, will be used in part to offer career services to help students find their next gigs after completing courses. “One of the big hurdles is they don’t know how to look for a job in a new sector,” Silver says. “They don’t know the basics to create a good-looking portfolio, online presence, or to do the right things in interviews.”
Students will work with recruiters, he says, from the field they want to get into to flesh out their résumés, and find ways to frame their skills for their desired new roles.
Thinkful was co-founded in 2012 by Silver and Dan Friedman, and has grown from 12 employees last January to its current staff of 30. The company has some 250 software engineers that serve as mentors to its students. In 2013, Thinkful raised $1 million in a round led by RRE Ventures, Peter Thiel’s FF Angel, and others.
