Manara, an edtech startup, has secured $3 million in a pre-seed round backed by Stripe. The funding round also included Reid Hoffman, the creator of LinkedIn, Paul Graham, the founder of Y Combinator, Eric Ries, the inventor of Lean Startup, and Mudassir Sheikha, the founder, and CEO of Careem.
In addition, the business intends to provide a self-service product for software engineers seeking interview practice, networking, and mentorship.
Manara is a cohort-based training program that connects computer science students and software engineers to permanent, remote, and onsite positions with companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Zalando.
It provides mentorship and a network of tech professionals to help engineers in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) area obtain technical jobs.
The startup charges its clients and hiring partners a fee and operates remotely with staff across the US, MENA, and European markets.
For the first two years, the program costs 10% of the candidate’s income.
“The Middle East boasts the world’s youngest population and, since the Arab Spring, has made significant expenditures in education.” Every five years, the number of college graduates doubles,” stated Laila Abudahi, co-founder and CTO of Manara.
The funds will be used to grow the startup’s current solution from 60 engineers per year to 6,000 engineers per year.
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