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Mentza Raises $400,000 Seed Round Led By Inflection Point Ventures Funds raised to be used to build a healthy base of experts and curious learners, build an efficient translation of conversations into content, and to broad base the platform regionally and across interest-communities

By Prabhjeet Bhatla

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Audio-based conversational learning startup Mentza on Wednesday announced to have raised a seed round of $400,000 led by angel investment platform infection Point Ventures.

The funds raised will be utilized in building a healthy base of experts and curious learners, building an efficient translation of conversations into content, and broad base the platform regionally and across interest communities. The startup has over 23000 registered users and already generated over 60,000 minutes of content.

"Our mission is to get every growth-minded person to engage in at least one Mentza conversation every day, thus making learning effortless, continuous, and social. IPV's investor community has CXOs who understand the need for continuous learning in today's challenging growth environments. Thus, making them the ideal strategic partners in our vision," said Anurag Vaish, founder, Mentza.

The startup has recently announced creator partnerships with Rolling Stones and Harper Collins and is in talks with MICA faculty and students to engage them on the platform

Mentza is building both B2B and B2C use cases. Users can build a portfolio of recorded conversations with highlights and snippets. Their app is free to use for all and initial focus is to attract users (creators and listeners) from LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.

"Mentza's model of delivering curated content in 20 minutes capsules is a powerful idea. Audio is a powerful tool that allows you to learn and participate while multi-tasking. Mentza is looking to build an audio-focused conversational learning platform in a community setting, led by team of strong second-time founders with diverse backgrounds and strengths. Many funds we spoke with as part of our due diligence also showed keen interest in this space. While B2C is the immediate focus, Mentza is separately also working on a focused B2B strategy going after large untapped Enterprise Podcast space," added Ankur Mittal, co-founder, Inflection Point Ventures.

The audio content market in India is at an inflection point. As of December 2019, 40 million Indian internet users have listened to podcasts. Edtech is still going through its round of innovations and needs more effortless and safer formats and live audio addresses that gap the bridge. Mentza believes that learning is easier and richer in conversations than planned monologues, the company shared.

Prabhjeet Bhatla

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