Edtech startup MindX lands $3 million in new funding

MindX has been tremendously successful during the COVID-19 pandemic

As Vietnam’s internet economy rapidly grows, the tech talent shortage in the country continues to worsen. According to government statistics, Vietnam was short of 400,000 IT workers in 2020, and the number is expected to reach 500,000 this year. Realising that new skill sets would be required for future work, MindX was born to empower students through skills-based learning and fostering out-of-the-box thinking.

MindX helps K-12 students develop coding skills while assisting young adults to land jobs in tech companies in Vietnam and Singapore, among other countries. Since its inception in 2015, MindX has been teaching coding fundamentals to over 25,000 students with 13 offline locations in Vietnam and an online education programme.

“Our passion is to make technology education accessible to everyone, thus enabling our students to boost their career prospects and find favourable job opportunities in both IT and non-IT industries,” said Tung Nguyen, co-founder of MindX. “We will utilise the fresh funds to reinforce MindX's online platform, create more engaging content, and bring some of our courses to tier-2, tier-3 cities, and provinces in Vietnam. We will also focus on extending our employer partners network in Singapore, Japan, and the US to provide better job placement for the students.”

MindX has been profitable constantly for the past six years, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. What makes MindX different is it also provides long-term courses designed for 5-10 years, with job guarantees and compelling packages. Many MindX graduates are working as software engineers at reputable tech companies like Google, Amazon, and Shopee.

In 2017, MindX began to open co-working spaces in their campuses to take advantage of any underutilised assets during office hours, helping cover all rental and operational fees. They also went online, which significantly improved customer lifetime value and sales metrics. As they doubled down on both revenue streams during COVID-19, by September 2021, MindX witnessed a 1,000 per cent growth on-year in online enrollment.

Commenting on the investment, Gavin Lee, partner at Wavemaker, said: “We are excited to back the MindX team with their vision to revolutionise Vietnam’s tech education landscape and unlock career opportunities for 20 million K-12 and university students. MindX is addressing a clear need, given the worsening shortage of software engineers in Vietnam. It has been inspiring to witness Tung and Ha transform the company from a non-profit coding school to a multi-million topline business.”