Pangea.app, the Providence-based startup behind a platform to connect companies with college students for freelance work, has raised $400,000 in a pre-seed round.
The funding comes from PJC, a Boston-based venture capital firm, and Underdog Labs. Previously, Pangea had raised money from angel investors.
Born out of a Brown University dorm room, with its app first launched in 2017, Pangea started out as a peer-to-peer marketplace that helped college students find side hustles in the form of project and contract work. It has since pivoted to connect college students on a project or contract basis with startups and larger companies. Pangea makes money by taking a 15 percent cut of transaction volume and charging some companies a SaaS fee for access to its best-vetted student workers.
The journey to secure the pre-seed capital began a little over two years ago, when Pangea co-founder and CEO Adam Alpert met David Hehman at Olga's Cup & Saucer, a coffee shop in Providence's innovation and design district that closed in December. Hehman had built a remote job board himself early in his career, so he was in a position to advise Alpert and his team on their own platform.
Hehman also happens to be one-half of the two-person team that makes up Underdog Labs.
"I had been picking [Hehman's] brain as an advisor, and he came and saw us present at our MassChallenge startup event in late October," Alpert told Rhode Island Inno. "He was with us when we presented on the main stage in front of 2,500 people."
Three weeks later, Alpert said, Hehman reached out and said he wanted Underdog Labs to co-lead Pangea's pre-seed round. Hehman also introduced the team to PJC, a fund that was initially founded in Rhode Island and is now based in Boston. Alpert met with one of PJC's partners at the CIC in Providence—where Pangea is also based—and with more of the team in Boston the following Monday.
The $400,000 that Pangea has now raised from the two firms is not the end of the pre-seed round, Alpert said. He plans to raise at least an additional $100,000 and has been in talks with investors who are potentially interested in oversubscribing.
Coronavirus, however, has disrupted that plan. Alpert now isn't sure if he wants to keep fundraising or put the rest of the round on hold for six months or so.
Either way, Pangea's primary focus at the moment is on one thing: "Product development, product development, product development," Alpert said.
"The promise of Pangea is very aligned with what companies are looking for right now."
As coronavirus disrupts the rest of the startup world, Pangea has actually seen growth because of it. Since mid-March, the platform has expanded from 150 campuses to 300 campuses. There has also been a major influx of new companies signing up and an increase in transaction volume, with "thousands of dollars" flowing through Pangea each week, Alpert said.
Pangea has the potential to connect young people with remote work at a time when major tech companies are canceling their prestigious summer internship programs. Glassdoor, StubHub, Funding Circle, Yelp and Checkr have all canceled their programs due to coronavirus, TechCrunch reported last month. Meanwhile, layoffs have hit the startup world: Thousands of employees have been let go and are now looking for work.
"It's time for us to be a leader," Alpert said. "I can't tell you how many students I've spoken with who have had their internships and on-campus jobs canceled, who are looking to us to find alternative engagements. The promise of Pangea is very aligned with what companies are looking for right now. Companies are looking for engagements that are a low commitment. They don't want to commit to a full-time summer intern; they don't want to commit to 40 hours a week. They can't. They don't know what the world's going to look like in three months."
Pangea's platform has another advantage: It has always been targeted toward remote work, Alpert said. With offices closed and gatherings of more than a handful of people prohibited for the foreseeable future, remote work is largely the only option for startups.
Pangea's team is itself working remotely at the moment. Alpert is in New York, and his coworkers are scattered around the U.S. But Alpert hasn't lost sight of what makes Rhode Island uniquely suited to continue building out the company. In the last few weeks, Pangea has made offers to several interns and new employees, all emerging from Brown and the University of Rhode Island.
"With the money that we've raised to date, living in Providence is so much more affordable than living in Boston, New York or the Bay Area," Alpert said. "The talent we're sourcing for our team is Rhode Island-based. We have some of the best programs in the country... If we can hire in Rhode Island, we will."
