GoPursue
Matches employers with pre-screened high school graduates for entry-level roles via a career networking platform.
Website: https://gopursue.com/
Cover Block
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | GoPursue |
| Tagline | Matches employers with pre-screened high school graduates for entry-level roles via a career networking platform. |
| Headquarters | Washington, DC |
| Business Model | B2B SaaS |
| Industry | Edtech / Workforce Development |
| Technology | Software (non-AI) |
| Geography | North America |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Solo Founder (Kathryn Adabonyan) |
| Funding Label | Pre-Seed |
| Total Disclosed | ~$500,000 [SignalBase] |
Links
- Website: https://gopursue.com/
- Secondary site: https://gopursue.io/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gopursuecareer
- Crunchbase: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/gopursue
- Founder profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/k-adabonyan/
- Founder talk (video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgVGodWdZas
What an Investor Needs First
GoPursue is a Washington, DC-based B2B SaaS platform that connects employers with pre-screened high school graduates seeking entry-level roles. It gives students aged 15 to 22 a structured way to explore careers and build a professional network before they enter the workforce [Crunchbase] [LinkedIn].
The company is positioned at the intersection of two underserved markets: employers struggling to fill high-volume entry-level positions with candidates who stay, and students graduating high school without a clear next step into work.
Founder and CEO Kathryn Adabonyan has built the product around the thesis that career awareness and mentor access need to start years earlier than the traditional college recruiting funnel [Crunchbase].
To date, the company has disclosed approximately $500,000 in pre-seed capital [SignalBase]. It is operating with a small team, reportedly four employees [RocketReach], with active hiring for a B2B SaaS account executive role [LinkedIn Kerrin Kinnear].
The product appears in two web properties (gopursue.com for employers, gopursue.io for the career awareness experience). It was profiled at Press Play 2023 [YouTube].
Over the next 12 to 18 months, the questions worth tracking are whether GoPursue can convert pre-seed traction into a repeatable employer sales motion, whether its student-side engagement supports a defensible matching engine, and whether a named institutional lead emerges in a seed round.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Founder and pre-seed amount confirmed across Crunchbase and SignalBase; round date, lead investor, and revenue metrics not publicly disclosed.
Taxonomy Snapshot
| Axis | Value |
|---|---|
| Business Model | B2B SaaS |
| Industry / Vertical | Edtech, Workforce Development |
| Technology Type | Software (non-AI) |
| Geography | North America (HQ Washington, DC) |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Solo Founder |
| Funding | Pre-Seed, ~$500,000 disclosed |
Inside the Company
GoPursue began as a career awareness and mentor-networking concept aimed at students aged 15 to 22. It has since added an employer-facing matching layer that positions it as a B2B SaaS company selling into hiring teams that need to fill high-volume entry-level roles [LinkedIn] [Crunchbase].
The company is headquartered in Washington, DC. It operates a community presence locally, including a listing with Serve DC for volunteer engagement [Serve DC].
The public narrative centers on Adabonyan's stated mission to fuel economic mobility and local workforce development starting in high school [Crunchbase]. A profile in Innovations of the World frames the platform as helping students explore careers, connect with professionals, and discover work opportunities with local employers [Innovations of the World].
The dual-domain setup (gopursue.com for the employer pitch, gopursue.io for the student-facing career awareness experience) suggests an intentional split between the demand side and the supply side.
Key milestones include founding and product launch under Adabonyan's leadership [Crunchbase], a Press Play 2023 appearance [YouTube], the close of an approximately $500,000 pre-seed round [SignalBase], and the start of intentional commercial hiring with a Washington-area B2B SaaS account executive search [LinkedIn Kerrin Kinnear]. A Hub71 (Abu Dhabi) ecosystem listing under the gopursuecareer handle suggests the company has explored international ecosystem connections [Hub71].
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Mission, HQ, and founder confirmed across Crunchbase and LinkedIn; founding year, legal entity, and detailed milestone dates not publicly disclosed.
Under the Hood
GoPursue presents itself publicly as a two-sided platform. On the employer side, the gopursue.com homepage describes the product as a way to "get matched with early talent that sticks" and to "match employers with top students who are graduating directly into the workforce" [GoPursue]. The site organizes content into For Employers, For Educators, and The Problem, with a Schedule a Demo call to action consistent with a sales-led B2B SaaS motion.
On the student side, gopursue.io is framed around "career awareness and networking" [GoPursue]. The LinkedIn company page describes the experience as helping high school students learn about careers and connect with professionals [LinkedIn]. A founder talk at Press Play 2023 characterized the product as an app that helps high school and college students figure out which jobs to pursue and connects them to mentors [YouTube].
The core differentiation is the pre-screening layer. Employers are not asked to sift through open applications but are matched with candidates who have been vetted through the platform's career-direct profile [Crunchbase].
No technology stack details are confirmed in public sources. The company is categorized as Software (non-AI) in the structured taxonomy. No mobile app listing on the App Store or Google Play is confirmed, leaving open whether the current delivery is web-first, mobile-first, or both.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Product positioning confirmed across GoPursue, LinkedIn, and Innovations of the World; technical architecture and platform delivery not publicly disclosed.
Market Research and Opportunity
GoPursue is targeting a market where employers across retail, hospitality, healthcare support, logistics, and skilled trades are facing a structural shortage of entry-level workers. Simultaneously, a growing share of US high school graduates are choosing not to enroll in four-year college, creating a large cohort of young adults entering the workforce directly.
The most relevant adjacent markets are early-career hiring platforms (Handshake, RippleMatch), apprenticeship and skills-based hiring infrastructure (Multiverse, Guild), and high-volume hourly hiring marketplaces (Indeed Flex, Snagajob, Instawork). Each has demonstrated that employers are willing to pay subscription or per-hire fees for higher-signal early-career candidates.
Macro forces pushing in GoPursue's direction include declining undergraduate enrollment, sustained employer demand for entry-level workers, and growing state-level investment in career and technical education pathways.
| Comparable Market Signal | What It Implies for GoPursue | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Handshake's category-defining position in college early-career recruiting | Validates employer willingness to pay for a structured early-career talent channel | (analogous market, public reporting) |
| Sustained employer demand for entry-level service and trades workers | Pull-side demand for pre-screened high school graduates is structural, not cyclical | (analogous market, US BLS labor data) |
| State investment in CTE and apprenticeship pathways | Procurement opening for platforms that can serve both employers and educators | (analogous market, public policy reporting) |
Data Accuracy: ORANGE -- No company-specific market sizing has been disclosed publicly; market commentary above relies on analogous categories rather than first-party data.
Competition and Substitutes
GoPursue is positioned in a quadrant of the early-career hiring market that is less crowded than college recruiting but more fragmented. The competitive map breaks into three layers.
The first is incumbent generalists: Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and Snagajob serve high-volume entry-level hiring but do not pre-screen by career intent or age cohort. The second is venture-backed early-career challengers: Handshake, RippleMatch, and Multiverse. GoPursue's wedge against this layer is its focus on high school graduates specifically. The third layer is the public sector and nonprofit substitute: school district career counselors, Junior Achievement, YearUp, and state workforce boards.
GoPursue could build a defensible edge on the data layer that comes from running a two-sided platform from age 15 onward. Years of student career interest signals, mentor interactions, and eventual placement outcomes are the kind of dataset no incumbent currently owns. That edge is durable if the company can persuade school systems to adopt the student-facing experience at scale. It is perishable if Handshake or a state workforce platform decides to extend downward into high school.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Competitive landscape based on market analysis of adjacent platforms.
Opportunity
If GoPursue executes, the prize is becoming the default early-career talent layer for the roughly half of US high school graduates who do not enroll in a four-year college. The headline opportunity is for GoPursue to become to non-college-bound high school graduates what Handshake became to undergraduates.
| Scenario | What happens | Catalyst | Why it's plausible |
|---|---|---|---|
| District Anchor | GoPursue lands two to three flagship metropolitan school district contracts in the Mid-Atlantic and uses them as a reference architecture for national expansion | A signed multi-year district partnership in DC, Baltimore, or Philadelphia | DC HQ and local Serve DC presence give the company natural proximity to district decision-makers [Serve DC] |
| Employer Land-and-Expand | A national employer in retail, healthcare support, or logistics adopts GoPursue as its default high school graduate hiring channel and expands across markets | First enterprise B2B SaaS contract closed by the new account executive hire | Active AE hiring suggests a sales-led motion is being built [LinkedIn Kerrin Kinnear] |
| Workforce Policy Tailwind | A state workforce development agency selects GoPursue as a preferred vendor under a CTE or apprenticeship expansion program | State procurement award tied to federal workforce funds | Public framing around workforce development and economic mobility positions the company for policy-aligned procurement [Crunchbase] [Innovations of the World] |
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Opportunity framing is grounded in cited company positioning and analogous public comparables; specific scenario outcomes are illustrative and not company-guided forecasts.
Sources
- [GoPursue] Home - GoPursue | https://gopursue.com/
- [GoPursue] GoPursue (career awareness site) | https://gopursue.io/
- [LinkedIn] GoPursue company page | https://www.linkedin.com/company/gopursuecareer
- [LinkedIn] Kathryn Adabonyan profile | https://www.linkedin.com/in/k-adabonyan/
- [LinkedIn Kerrin Kinnear] Kerrin Kinnear, Venture Cooperative | https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerrinkinnear/
- [Crunchbase] GoPursue company profile | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/gopursue
- [Crunchbase] Kathryn Adabonyan person profile | https://www.crunchbase.com/person/kathryn-adabonyan-3fb0
- [Innovations of the World] GoPursue: Empowering the Next Generation | https://innovationsoftheworld.com/gopursue-empowering-the-next-generation/
- [SignalBase] GoPursue Secures $500K in Pre-Seed Funding | https://www.trysignalbase.com/news/funding/gopursue-secures-500k-in-pre-seed-funding-to-rework-career-exploration-for-high-school-students
- [YouTube] Kathryn Adabonyan | GoPursue | Press Play 2023 | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgVGodWdZas
- [Serve DC] GoPursue agency listing | https://servedc.galaxydigital.com/agency/detail/?agency_id=152557
- [RocketReach] GoPursue company information | https://rocketreach.co/gopursue-profile_b778c5f5c51a2fd7
- [Hub71] gopursuecareer ecosystem listing | https://explorer.hub71.com/companies/gopursuecareer
- [PitchBook] GoPursue valuation, funding & investors | https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/663843-52
- [F6S] Kathryn Adabonyan member profile | https://www.f6s.com/member/kathryn-adabonyan1
Articles about GoPursue
- GoPursue Wants Every High School Graduate on an Employer's Shortlist — The Washington, DC startup raised $500,000 in pre-seed funding to route career-direct teens into entry-level B2B jobs.