MENTOR COLLECTIVE RAISES $21M TO ACCELERATE MISSION OF BRIDGING EQUITY GAPS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

BOSTON, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Mentor Collective, the leading provider of scalable, structured mentorship programs, announced today that it has raised strategic funding to meet the growing demand for large-scale peer mentorship on today's college campuses. The Series A investment round was led by Resolve Growth Partners - a venture capital and growth equity firm committed to helping technology-enabled companies realize their full potential. Additionally, the round included reinvestments from Mentor Collective's initial thought partner Lumina Foundation - an independent, private foundation in Indianapolis committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. In 2021, Mentor Collective - a remote-first company founded in Boston - created over 83,000 mentorships, exceeding the cumulative total of the last six years. Since its founding, the company has trained over 50,000 mentors. This engagement along with the confidence of both for-profit and non-profit investors is a clear indication of the current success of Mentor Collective and the critical need for mentorship in higher education.

A proven practice for student success, structured mentorship has been shown by peer-reviewed studies to have an exceptional impact on the outcomes of BIPOC and first-generation identifying students. Through its 160+ partnerships with higher education institutions across the country, Mentor Collective makes the science behind large-scale mentorship accessible and helps administrators drive social mobility for underserved student populations. The robust Mentor Collective platform provides institutions the ability to launch, manage, and analyze mentorship programs while offering a support network of educators, curriculum designers, engineers, data scientists, researchers, and support teams dedicated to helping students develop a sense of belonging and grow their social capital. Additionally, the platform's Flags feature complements student wellbeing efforts by allowing mentors to triage mentee concerns - such as financial challenges or housing insecurity - to appropriate campus resources.

"The United States increasingly lags behind the developed world in economic mobility, and higher education must play a role in closing the gap." said Jackson Boyar, Co-Founder and CEO of Mentor Collective. "Institutions enrolling and graduating a diverse class with strong employment outcomes are those implementing holistic student support, including peer mentorship. Mentor Collective is proud to play a role in closing the equity gap by giving administrators the capacity to scale effective mentorship programs and create policies that drive student success."

"We implemented a peer mentoring program from Mentor Collective to address the lack of authentic hallway conversations students rely on to exchange social and campus capital," said Dr. Thomas Dickson, Assistant Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education and Adjunct Assistant Professor at University of California, Riverside. "The outcomes for the program were greater than our expectations. We had a huge commitment of volunteer mentors and a high level of engagement from freshmen and transfer students. Unexpectedly, the system's conversations, flags, and survey systems also helped us inform processes and policies during the pandemic by providing valuable insight at how and where students were struggling week to week."

The additional investments from Resolve and Lumina Foundation will contribute to the company's evolving infrastructure and aid in the development of new products, training and services including supporting mentorship in the workplace. Mentor Collective was labeled one of Built-In's Best Places to Work in Boston and awarded the regional Timmy Award for Best Tech for Good. The company doubled its size in 2021 and will continue hiring into the new year to optimize services, broaden research, and beta test new product functionality. View current openings.

"We believe technology-enabled, peer-based mentoring at scale will be a critical component of bridging equity gaps across the higher education landscape in the years to come. Mentor Collective has built a rare company that combines a palpable social mission with a for-profit orientation," said Jit Sinha, co-founder of Resolve Growth Partners. "We are extremely excited to partner with the Mentor Collective team at this inflection point in their evolution."

To request an interview with Mentor Collective Co-Founder and CEO Jackson Boyar, contact Lisa Wright at [email protected] or 609-577-0541.

For additional research on mentorship within the higher education ecosystem and student stories, please review the below resources:

2020-21 Mentor Collective Impact Report - Features university case studies, student stories, and product updates
[2021 Whitepaper] The Impact of Peer Mentorship on College Enrollment 
[2021 Whitepaper] The Impact of Peer Mentorship on Sense of Belonging

About Mentor Collective
Mentor Collective—the leading provider of high-impact, large-scale mentorship programming in higher education—is a collective of institutions and thought leaders dedicated to closing the opportunity gap through mentorship. Founded in 2014, Mentor Collective has delivered 700+ unique mentorship programs, established 160+ institutional partnerships, and formed 200,000 mentoring relationships through expert-led research, services, and technology. As an impact-first investment of the Lumina Foundation, Mentor Collective partners with forward-thinking institutions that are committed to equity, inclusion, and relationship-centered education. 

About Resolve Growth Partners
Resolve Growth Partners is a venture capital and growth equity firm focused on investing in B2B software and technology-enabled companies.  Resolve enables passionate, committed entrepreneurs to accelerate growth. Resolve provides expertise and repeatable best practices across talent management, go-to-market and operations. For more information on Resolve, visit resolvegrowth.com.

About Lumina Foundation
Lumina Foundation is an independent, private foundation in Indianapolis that is committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. Lumina envisions a system that is easy to navigate, delivers fair results, and meets the nation's need for talent through a broad range of credentials. The foundation's goal is to prepare people for informed citizenship and for success in a global economy.

SOURCE Mentor Collective