Srikanth
Audio-based conversational learning startup Mentza has raised a seed round of $400k 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 to broad base the platform regionally and across interest communities. The start-up has over 23000 registered users and 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 20 minutes 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 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.”
Mentza’s team has a cumulative 80 years of work experience 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 the most robust & democratised short-form live audio platform with unique 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
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.
Anurag Vaish, Founder of Mentza says, “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.”
Mentza is the first organisation in the world to build audio portfolios, recordings, and live highlights. The start-up promotes active learning where any participant can request to speak vs monologues / passive listening in other audio formats. Mentza platform catalogues the content into an audio portfolio of eligible users and are testing AI generated profile of expertise and personality. The platform is also offered as an enterprise solution for internal use within organizations.
Audio content market in India is at an inflection point. As of Dec 2019, 40mn Indian internet users have 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 gap the bridge. Mentza believes that learning is easier & richer in conversations than planned monologues.
