Unbeknownst to most, the Providence-based startup Pangea.app has quietly been working its way through the same accelerator that has churned out unicorns like Stripe, Airbnb and Coinbase.
The company, which built a marketplace to connect companies to college students looking for work, recently tweeted that it is officially a Y Combinator company and has been participating in the three-month accelerator since January. (Pangea’s CEO, Adam Alpert, could not be reached for comment.)
One of the most well-known startup accelerators in the world, Y Combinator is a program that provides each startup with $125,000 in seed money in exchange for a 7% post-money equity stake.
The goal of the program is to help startups develop their products to the point where they not only can raise a large round of funding and really scale, but are also prepared to deal with and negotiate with investors.
Features of the program include office hours, weekly dinners and supreme networking opportunities. While startups normally move to Mountain View, California for the program, the current batch has been running remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Y Combinator culminates during an event called Demo Day, where all the program participants present their startups to a specially-selected audience of investors and press.
Pangea has come a long way since launching in 2016.
The startup began as a peer-to-peer marketplace looking to connect college students looking for contract or part-time work with other college startups or companies. But in 2019, Pangea pivoted and began focusing on connecting college students on a project or contract basis with larger companies as well.
The decision seems to have paid off.
Last April, the company closed a $400,000 pre-seed round, with funding from the Boston-based venture capital firm PJC and Underdog Labs. Previously, Pangea had raised money from angel investors.
The pandemic also seems to have helped Pangea grow its business. Recently, Alpert told TechCrunch that the platform saw roughly $50,000 worth of transactions between college freelancers and businesses over the last four weeks. A year ago, that number was only around $3,000 or $4,000, he said.
Pangea also said in a blog post in January that it grew its team from three to 20, expanded from 50 campuses to 700 and helped students earn $230,000 during the pandemic.
The company in recent months has also moved to a new fee structure, charging employers seeking work a 5% fee on top of the invoice amount, as well as a 20% commission from the students’ invoice or direct payments.
Additionally, the company has launched Pangea.app Academy, a free platform to help students gain knowledge and experience without a job.
Bram Berkowitz is a contributing writer for Rhode Island Inno.
