ADPList Receives $1.3M to Enable Mentorship Access to Professionals and Students

ADPList’s fast, one-click access to a global network has made it one of the industry’s most prominent platforms in the contemporary creator economy, where people are eager to share, encourage, and teach others.

FREMONT, CA: ADPList, a global mentorship platform, has received 1.3 million dollars in capital from Surge, Sequoia Capital India’s rapid scale-up program for startups in India and Southeast Asia. ADPList is a global network that allows users to find, book, and meet mentors from all around the world, giving anyone access to some of the brightest minds in the world, starting with the design and product management community.

There is currently no shared infrastructure that facilitates cross-border mentoring or provides access to a worldwide network of mentors with varying skill sets and experience levels. ADPList’s fast, one-click access to a global network has made it one of the industry’s most prominent platforms in the contemporary creator economy, where people are eager to share, encourage, and teach others.

What began as a way for designers to offer peer support, job prospects, and mentorship to others affected by the pandemic has expanded organically to over 20,500 mentees, 2,500 mentors, and over 5,000 monthly booked sessions.

Mentors can post their availability on a shared calendar for mentees to choose from and arrange virtual sessions using ADPList. Within the platform, video calls are held, with comments and ratings provided after each session. The platform also offers small group mentorship, townhall-style presentations, and other forms in addition to one-on-one coaching.

ADPList began as a list of names in 2020, sparked by the creators’ desire to assist the numerous designers who lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Mentoring was the most popular tab in the open-source spreadsheet, with the most clicks.

Amazing Design People List, ADPList, was developed as a result of the founder’s desire to turn this into a platform. Spotify, Apple, LinkedIn, Twitter, Nike, Netflix, Coinbase, Twitch, and many other organizations employ ADPList mentors.

Felix Lee and James Baduor founded the corporation in Singapore in the year 2021. Lee is a product designer who has transitioned into a software entrepreneur. He was the Design Lead at Gotrade and the Co-Founder of Packdat, which was bought out in 2018. Lee completed his studies at Singapore Polytechnic but chose to follow his commercial interests rather than continue his education at university. Baduor, who is based in Ghana, is passionate about community and design education and has self-taught Webflow and other NoCode tools. He has aided several students in establishing design professions and has assisted entrepreneurs in validating MVPs and launching their products. He is one of Webflow’s top creators globally, having the platform’s most popular project.

The funding is supported by prominent angel investors Crystal Widjaja (ex-Gojek executive), JJ Chai (CEO of Rainforest), Ting Feng Toh (Co-Founder of GetGo), Quek Siu Rui (Co-Founder & CEO, Carousell), and Zopim Founders (Royston Tay, Wen Xiang Wu, and Yang Bin Kwok).

ADPList is part of Surge’s fifth cohort of 23 companies that have built new digital solutions to help firms and individuals live, work and learn better in a rapidly developing Southeast Asian landscape.