SOKANU, whose platform offers people a battery of psychometric questions to match their interests to careers, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed financing from the USA Funds, a nonprofit that promotes student success in college and careers. Based in Vancouver, Canada, Sokanu launched in beta in October 2012 by Spencer Thompson, who was 21 years old at the time. He raised an early (also undisclosed) seed round in early 2012 from angels including Trent Gegax of The Gramercy Fund, Scott Roberts (with LinkedIn), GSV Advisors and Canadian organizational career psychologist, Larry Stefan.
Users spend about 20 minutes answering questions that assess them on more than 180 traits across eight categories including personality, needs, culture, interests, and abilities. Sokanu then matches them with a dozen of the 750 career profiles in its database. Sokanu says its product is used by more than a hundred schools and universities including NYU, University of Nevada, University of Texas and the University of Miami. The company employees 11 people.
