Mentza raises $400,000 in seed round led by Inflection Point Ventures

Audio-based converMentza sational learning startup has raised $400,000 in a seed funding round led by Inflection Point Ventures, one of India’s largest angel investment platforms.

The funds raised will be utilised in building a healthy base of experts and curious learners, building an efficient translation of conversations into content and for broad-basing the platform regionally and across interest communities. The start-up has over 23,000 registered users and has already generated over 60K minutes of content.

Mentza is a one of its kind audio-based conversational learning platform that wants to engage users through high quality focused 20-minute conversations across diverse topics. Conversations are recorded with features like highlight, 40-second snippets and curated content recommendation.

Ankur Mittal, co-founder, Inflection Point Ventures, says, “Mentza’s model of delivering curated content in a 20 minute capsule 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 a team of strong second-time founders with diverse backgrounds and strengths”

Mentza’s team has a cumulative work experience of 80 years with deep expertise across tech, design, cognitive sciences, research and marketing. The team is using their background and knowledge in data science to influence user engagement and retention. They have built a robust and democratised short-form live audio platform with features like live highlighter, audio portfolios and creators’ studio. Mentza has recently announced creator partnerships with Rolling Stones and Harper Collins and is in talks with MICA faculty & students to engage them on the platform

“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.

Audio content market in India is at an inflection point. As of December 2019, 40 million Indian internet users had listened to podcasts. The audio-based content has tremendous potential to catch up with video and text formats for the simple reason that one can listen while multitasking. EdTech is still going through its round of innovations and needs more effortless and safer formats and live audio addresses that bridge the gap. Mentza believes that learning is easier and richer in conversations than planned monologues.