Career Karma Raises $40M, Plans to Introduce Accreditation Programs

The company’s navigation platform directs prospective techies to upskilling workshops, bootcamps, professional certification programs and accredited degrees.
Written by Jeremy Porr
January 10, 2022Updated: January 10, 2022
The company’s navigation platform directs prospective techies to upskilling workshops, bootcamps, professional certification programs and accredited degrees.
PHOTO: CAREER KARMA

Job hunting isn’t easy, especially if you’d like to break into an industry you’re passionate about but lack the skills required to get your foot in the door. Enter Career Karma. The San Francisco-based startup connects prospective techies with job training programs of all sorts. From tech-focused workshops and extended bootcamps to professional certifications and, most recently, accredited degrees.

Now the edtech company is receiving a fresh injection of capital to push things forward as it looks to tackle the world of higher education. The company announced Monday that it raised $40 million in a Series B round led by Top Tier Capital Partners.

“In our view, higher education is not going away,” Career Karma CEO and co-founder Ruben Harris said in a statement. “But higher education institutions are launching shorter, faster, and cheaper models that fit the needs of employers and the shifting preferences of workers for skills based training.”

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The latest raise is Career Karma’s first since it closed its Series A in 2020. At the time, the company was attracting more than one million people to its platform every month. Career Karma now has its sights set on reaching one billion users over the next 10 years, according to Harris.  

With its foray into the world of higher education, the company hopes to serve as the sole bridge between workers, schools and enterprises in a category all its own.  

“These are life-changing decisions that people are making, and matching people to job training programs isn’t enough to get them to enroll, retain, graduate from job training programs, and ultimately land a job,” Harris said in a company blog post

In addition to its suite of training access tools, Career Karma recently introduced live audio functionalities to its platform. The audio rooms intend to serve as a space for job seekers to connect with peers, mentors and coaches that can support them on their career journey. Schools and companies can also directly interact with users on the platform that have questions about their courses or what jobs they are offering. 

“The purpose of [our] technology is to give people a voice, the power to create, and the power to organize,” Harris said. 

Career Karma’s fully distributed team works across nine states and 20 countries. That being said, the company’s leadership team is planning to make a move to Miami in the near future. Harris hopes to provide an assist to the city’s service sector, which, he says, is particularly vulnerable to changes in automation.

“While it’s great that Miami has the largest number of tech workers moving to its city, if the local people don’t get the skills to take advantage of the job opportunities provided by the VC’s and entrepreneurs that are also moving there, the cost of living will go up,” Harris continued. “And the same gentrification situation that happened in San Francisco will happen there too.”

Moving forward the company plans to hire for its team. Career Karma is currently on the lookout for 17 fresh faces to join its marketing, sales and product teams to name a few.

Several new investors including GV, Bronze Venture Fund and Stardust participated in the round alongside existing investors like SoftBank and Y Combinator. 

Career Karma has raised $91.9 million in venture capital financing to date, according to Crunchbase.

Jobs at Career Karma

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