Nestlings Raises $1.5M to Navigate Students through College Application Process

Nestlings raises $1.5M in a seed round of funding from Candid Ventures.

FREMONT, CA: Nestlings, an online portal that navigates international students through the procedure of applying to colleges in the US, Canada, and the U.K., raises $1.5M in a Seed Round of funding from Candid Ventures. The funding will support the tech startup to grow its team, strengthen its technology infrastructure, and raise its number of university partners worldwide. To date, Nestlings has supported more than 30,000 students to identify and apply to colleges and universities through the platform.

Nestlings' an application portal that focuses on mentoring these students through every step of the process, from developing a college list, offering application support and visa assistance to answering questions students may have along the way with peer-to-peer mentorship. Nestlings was developed to make a complex process seamless for everyone.

Often compared with The Common App, an application used by American students, Nestlings wishes to make the application in the U.S., U.K., and Canada seamless for both undergraduate and graduate students worldwide. The portal is free for all students.  Nestlings is tailored to make navigating the college application process simpler for students and work with colleges and universities to raise their brand awareness and enrollment numbers in international markets. The company's recruitment partners extend to about 500,000 students in Asia, making Nestlings a strategic asset for many schools that look to widen their reach into that part of the world.

This seed round was led by Candid Ventures, a group of investors led by Anu Vora and based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Candid Ventures invests in technology firms led by women and people of color, needing to cement the considerable gap in founders' funding. Nestlings have the potential and the platform to make a significant positive effect on students' lives and, ultimately, their career choices. Because a student's career path depends heavily on finding the right college fit, the company plans to widen shortly and offer job placement services.