Find Your Grind announces $5M raise to scale student career tools
Find Your Grind announced today it has raised $5 million to accelerate the growth of its career-exploration platform for K‑12 and postsecondary students. The funding, disclosed in a company statement, will be used to expand product development, deepen district and higher-education partnerships, and enhance employer connections to support skills-based pathways.
Background: a continuing push in edtech and skills-based hiring
Founded as a career-discovery and workforce-readiness platform, Find Your Grind offers assessment-driven content, curriculum modules, and experiential learning tools designed to help students identify nontraditional and emerging career paths. The company enters the latest funding round at a time when educators and employers are increasingly prioritizing skills over traditional credentials — a shift driven by labor-market demands, the rise of microcredentials, and platform-led talent pipelines from organizations including LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, and vocational programs.
Edtech investment has tempered since the pandemic peak, but niche platforms that connect learning outcomes to measurable workplace skills have retained investor interest. Find Your Grind positions itself in that middle ground: combining personalized career assessments with teacher-facing curriculum and employer-facing recruitment signals.
Product and go-to-market strategy
According to the company, the new capital will fund enhancements to its platform, including better data integrations with student information systems (SIS), expanded career content for in-demand sectors, and more tools to measure student outcomes. Those upgrades aim to give school districts and higher-education partners stronger evidence of return on investment when deploying career-prep technology.
Find Your Grind competes with and complements incumbents in college and career readiness like Naviance, Handshake, and newer skills-first products from Coursera and Credly. Its value proposition is focused on early discovery — helping students explore atypical or emerging careers (e.g., esports management, digital fabrication, renewable-energy technicians) before committing to postsecondary paths.
How districts and employers benefit
School districts adopt career-exploration platforms to meet state requirements for career readiness, reduce dropout rates, and create clearer postgraduation pathways. Employers, meanwhile, use these platforms to identify talent early and shape curricula to align with hiring needs. Investment in employer integrations and outcome reporting can help Find Your Grind demonstrate impact to procurement teams in districts and state education agencies.
Expert perspectives and market implications
Analysts and observers say the round underscores continued demand for tools that connect secondary education to the labor market. An independent edtech analyst noted that platforms tying assessments to microcredentials and employer signals are more likely to win district contracts as procurement shifts toward evidence-based solutions.
“School systems want measurable ROI and pathways that translate to jobs,” the analyst said. “Companies that can provide outcome data — not just engagement metrics — will have an edge in renewals and expansions.”
From a labor-market perspective, the investment aligns with broader trends toward skills-based hiring and competency frameworks. For employers struggling with talent pipelines, partnerships with platforms like Find Your Grind can be a lower-cost way to cultivate entry-level talent funneling into apprenticeships, internships, and early-career roles.
Risks and challenges
Despite the opportunity, Find Your Grind faces the usual edtech headwinds: lengthy school procurement cycles, tight district budgets, and the challenge of proving long-term outcomes. Integration with legacy SIS and compliance with student-privacy regulations such as FERPA will be key technical and legal considerations as the company scales.
Conclusion: what to watch next
With $5 million in new funding, Find Your Grind is positioned to expand its footprint at a moment when educators and employers are demanding clearer links between learning and work. Watch for announcements on district partnerships, outcomes-focused pilots, and employer integrations — tangible signals that the platform can turn exploration into measurable pathways to employment. For the broader edtech ecosystem, the round is another data point that investors still back companies that can credibly bridge K‑12 learning and workforce readiness in a skills-first economy.
Related topics and internal links: career exploration, edtech funding trends, skills-based hiring, K‑12 procurement, microcredentials.
About the Author
