Blackbird Ventures has led a $US5 million ($7 million) seed-funding round for a start-up that has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) driven program for training managers in an online classroom.
The Mintable’s program is available both for businesses and individual managers.
The company was founded last year by Americans Lauren Humphrey and Melissa Miller. They developed their product based on intelligence Humphrey had gathered in the process of looking for a job after she moved to Sydney from the US with her Australian husband.
Humphrey, the company’s chief executive, said the interviews showed her one area companies were really excited about was finding ways to improve management skills within their teams. She remembered she had experienced the same interest in the US so was convinced there would be international demand for an efficient and effective program.
The seed round was supported by additional new investors Flying Fox Ventures, Saniel Ventures, The Sypkes Group and Silicon Valley-based Global Founders Capital. Existing investors Startmate, Treble Capital and Black Nova, had invested $US980,000 ($1.4 million) in pre-seed funding in August 2021.
Humphrey had shared her initial idea with former colleague Miller. After interviewing 230 managers they had a clear idea of the areas in which they needed to provide guidance and support.
Miller said: “In addition to practical help, managers are desperate for connection with other managers to talk through their experiences, problem-solve and exchange ideas.”
They then launched the business jointly from Sydney and Denver, Colorado, where Miller lives.
Their four-week virtual program deals with three key issues: soft skills, loneliness and feeling overwhelmed.
Humphrey said she identified with the problems new managers faced as she had experienced them herself. Employed by San Francisco fintech Gusto, where she met Miller, she had worked alongside software engineers to create a health insurance product for small business owners. Her work had included building a team and then developing the skills of managers on that team. She had made many of the mistakes The Mintable trains managers to avoid.
She said: “We’ve been in the trenches as first-time managers and spent a decade developing managers at fast-growing unicorn start-ups and it always drove us crazy that we couldn’t find relevant content that actually addressed the day-to-day challenges of managers in a practical way.”
She also recognised that there are advantages in group training even if the participants are training remotely. Learning together enables managers to exchange experiences and learn from each other as well as alleviating the feeling of loneliness that results from one individual being elevated to manage others, she said.
Humphrey and Miller anticipate they will find other skills to incorporate in their training and plan to develop their platform further over time.
So far, the take-up of the service has been evenly split between Australia and the US with early adopters including fast growing companies Heaps Normal, Gusto, Notion, Sonder, Eucalyptus and Dovetail.
Blackbird principal Michael Tolo said: “The Mintable is tackling one of the most painful organisational problems that exists – management is an incredibly challenging job, and the reality is that great manages are not born, they are made. There hasn’t yet been the right solution to help them grow.”
The funding round has also enabled The Mintable to make a key appointment. The company has hired Sydney-based Marie-Claire Dean –who had previously worked for Google and Atlassian – as head of product.
Image: The Mintable’s program enables managers to be trained in a group in front of their own computer screens.