We’re so excited to be presenting at the GSV Cup Finals in San Diego in just a few days!

Our Founder and CEO Nancy Soni will be on stage to pitch PathMatch’s mission to a panel of esteemed judges who will determine which of the 20 EdTech finalists will take home the grand prize. But here’s the thing:

We need your vote!

On Tuesday, April 18th, virtual audience voting will be opened up for a short amount of time. Your vote will help determine the winner of this prestigious competition!

What is the GSV Cup?

The GSV Cup is the world’s largest pitch competition for startups within the digital learning and workforce skills sector. Running for 14 years, this competition is backed by tech giants such as HubSpot, Google, and GSV Ventures. Learn more about them in our previous post announcing our spot in the finals.

Why Winning Matters for PathMatch

The grand prize is $250,000! For a small, scrappy startup like us, that’s quite the runway to continue developing the PathMatch app and launch other features. In just over a year, we’ve:

• Launched the PathMatch app that connects students to modern careers to help them learn skills not taught in school, but very important for landing internships and jobs.
• Helped 30K students select their future career paths
• Connected thousands of students to life-changing internships and jobs.
• Created College Scorecards as a free tool to compare and contrast colleges and majors, so students can make more informed choices about their school and major.
• Launched a self-serve Employer Portal to post jobs and instantly match with qualified candidates
• And more!

With the grand prize, we’ll be able to release updates and new features even faster, while growing our small team to meet our aggressive and exciting goals. But the prize aside, winning would shine a light on our product and our mission, which can have an outsized impact all on its own.

What’s Your Mission Again?

Today, Gen Z is finding themselves entering both higher education and the workforce en masse. Unfortunately, no prior generation has had to deal with both the most expensive college tuition in history, and a job market that has (and is being) radically changed by technology.

53% of college graduates end up underskilled and underemployed because academia can’t keep up with the modern workforce. Think MS Word when the world is using ChatGPT. At the same time, they’re averaging $28,950 in student debt each – a full 25% more than Millennials.

On the other side of the coin, today’s employers are facing a looming skills shortage due to the limitations of the education system. By 2030, this skills gap will mean 30 million unfilled jobs and over $160 billion in lost revenue, just in the US alone.

PathMatch’s mission is to solve this skills gap problem by connecting students  to needed career paths early as underclassmen, teaching much-needed skills, and matching them to the right businesses to help students build the experience during school that will help them land higher paying jobs. We can service both sides of this equation efficiently with a modern career matching, free online learning, and algorithmic company matching.

How Do I Vote for PathMatch in the GSV Cup?

First, please tune into the live event. Not only will you catch a glimpse of the future of EdTech in general, you’ll see our CEO Nancy give a live pitch that will blow your socks off. You can register to watch from the comfort of your couch, free.

You might even get to see one of the highest-profile speakers attending:

Yep, Elmo’s going to be there!

And if Elmo’s not enough, the Keynote speakers will be Sheryl Sandberg (Meta, Google) and Bill Gates (you know who he is).

Next, when voting opens up, simply cast your virtual vote for PathMatch. It’ll just take a few seconds. We’ll be blasting the voting link out when it’s live across all our channels, so you can’t miss it.

We’re looking forward to pitching! Thank you so much in advance for casting your vote for PathMatch!