Rachit Poddar, cofounder of Marwari Catalysts Ventures, has invested $100,000 in Stride Ahead, an AI-enabled student mentorship platform. The funding will be used by the Delhi-based edtech startup to develop a full-stack platform-as-a-service for students and stakeholders.

Stride Ahead, founded by Verismart.ai cofounder Piyush Gupta in 2019, provides students with AI-based counselling and mentoring. It has a data-driven career incubation platform for freshers and early professionals, as well as tailored mentorship curated programmes.

“As the number of content-based edtech startups grows, there are more and more students and young professionals who are now geared towards upskilling,” Gupta said. “However, most struggle to understand how to dovetail this into their existing professional journey to move to the next level or to select the strongest skill to create a career with.”

"This is the niche that Stride Ahead will occupy," he said.

Every month, the company claims to be adding more than 600 new clients. Its user base now includes 200+ verified mentors, 300+ companies, and over 3,000 institutions, with over 8,000 students impacted across the country.

“The fast-growing segment is booming, but there are a lot of gaps that need to be filled to help students and professionals move from one level to the next,” Poddar said. “I am confident that Stride Ahead will change the way we attract, recruit and retain talent.”