Pangea.app raises $400K pre-seed round to help connect student workers with businesses

Pangea.app, a Windfall, Rhode Island-based startup has raised a $400,000 pre-seed spherical, it informed TechCrunch this week. The corporate’s new capital, raised as a post-money SAFE, comes from PJC, a Boston-based enterprise capital agency and Underdog Labs. Beforehand, Pangea.app raised cash from angel buyers.

The corporate hyperlinks “distant faculty freelancers,” per its web site, to companies across the nation. Faculty college students need paid work and resume-building expertise, whereas companies need assistance with piece-work that college students can assist with, like graphic design. In the present day, with faculties and universities closing as a consequence of COVID-19, college students caught at dwelling, and plenty of companies leery about including new, full-time workers, Pangea.app may discover itself in a market candy spot.
Some college students that had work lined up for the summer time are actually unexpectedly free, probably including to the startup’s labor rolls. “I can’t let you know what number of college students I’ve spoken with who've had summer time internships and on-campus jobs canceled,” Adam Alpert, Pangea.app’s CEO and co-founder informed TechCrunch, “we're filling an essential hole serving to them discover short-term, distant alternatives that allow them to contribute whereas studying.”

Pangea.app CEO Adam Alpert and CTO John Tambunting

If its advertising place resonates as its CEO hopes, the agency may see fast progress. In keeping with Alpert the corporate has seen 5 figures of contracts circulation via its platform up to now, and expects to achieve a gross merchandise quantity run fee that’s a a number of of its present measurement by the tip of summer time.
Some 250 faculties have college students on the platform; 60 faculties have joined within the final three weeks.
Pangea.app makes cash in two methods, taking a 15% lower of transaction quantity and charging some firms a SaaS payment for entry to its best-vetted scholar staff. The corporate had focused a $500,000 increase, a sum that Alpert says he’s assured that his firm can meet.
Whereas the nationwide economic system stutters and the enterprise capital world slows, Pangea.app could have picked up capital at a propitious time; elevating capital is just going to get more durable because the yr continues and it now has sufficient to function for a yr with out producing income; it can generate prime line, nevertheless, extending its money cushion.
Pangea.app aspires to extra than simply progress. Alpert informed TechCrunch that it has plenty of development-focused hires on the docket for 2020, together with a UI/UX designer and engineering expertise. The corporate additionally intends to make use of its personal platform to workers up over the summer time to assist velocity up its personal improvement.
Being primarily based in Windfall, not exactly the middle of the world’s startup gravity, could have some benefits for Pangea.app. The corporate stated that it's working to achieve break-even profitability earlier than it really works on the following a part of its enterprise. It’s simpler to try this in Windfall the place the price of dwelling and doing enterprise is much decrease than it's in bigger startup hubs.
Replace: The spherical was a pre-seed funding, not a seed deal as initially reported. The submit has been corrected. 

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