Participated · Seed · Nov 2021

Jefa is a fintech startup building digital accounts specifically for women in Latin America and the Caribbean. Its mobile app will let users open a free digital account without visiting a branch and receive a Visa debit card a few days later. The product includes a built-in savings feature and a rewards program, designed to address product decisions that have historically been unfriendly to women. Jefa has attracted 115,000 women on its waitlist and raised $2 million in a seed round to develop the product. The company also signed a multi-year strategic partnership with Visa to leverage Visa’s resources and products for its payment offerings. Jefa plans to launch first in Mexico, then expand to Colombia and Central America.

Participated · Seed · Jul 2019

Career Karma operates a marketplace and navigation tool that helps aspiring students and working professionals find and enroll in job-training programs and bootcamps rather than building its own curriculum. Founded in 2018 by Ruben Harris, Artur Meyster and Timur Meyster, the company has built a large community of career-transitioners and a curated marketplace of training options. In recent months it has seeded partnerships with employers and is shifting toward offering its services as an employee benefit, matching employees and contractors to training programs in its marketplace. The company historically charged bootcamps a placement fee—typically about 10% of a placed student’s tuition, which can range from $10,000 to $50,000—but is rethinking pricing as it moves into enterprise. Career Karma says this enterprise channel will enable employer-paid tuition and serve as a zero-cost acquisition channel to scale placements and upskilling. The startup has said its longer-term vision is to evolve into a large staffing-like business and is hiring to build pricing and product for that phase. Career Karma runs a student-to-bootcamp matching marketplace and community, helping learners find and enroll in coding bootcamps rather than building its own curriculum. The company charges bootcamps a placement fee—typically about 10% of a placed student’s tuition, which the article says can range from $10,000 to $50,000. It has expanded beyond simple matching into wraparound services, including small peer mentorship groups called Squads to support students during programs and job searches. Leadership says the startup is shifting toward becoming a daily-use career platform and plans to broaden its remit to trade schools, colleges and universities to build a larger community. Career Karma reports it has placed more than 3,000 people into job-training programs and has been profitable for the past five months while growing revenue roughly 20% month over month. The article notes an estimated top-line revenue range for the year (between $3M and $15M) based on placements, attributed to the reporter’s math in the story. Career Karma operates a free app that matches users to coding bootcamps and peer groups via a quiz, pairing beginners with more experienced peers for mentoring and study support. The company monetizes by taking a portion of bootcamp tuition when users accept an offer; bootcamps typically charge between $10,000 and $40,000, with median figures cited in a study. Career Karma says it has about 18,000 users and more than 100 downloads per day. The service emphasizes peer groups to improve retention and outcomes for career switchers, particularly those entering tech from nontechnical backgrounds. The startup traces its roots to a 2016 podcast called 'Breaking into Startups,' formed as a company in 2018, and graduated from Y Combinator earlier this year. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company focuses on scaling access to bootcamp options and community-driven support.