Kinobi

What Kinobi does

Kinobi is a Singapore-headquartered SaaS company, founded in 2020, that sells an integrated student-success platform to higher-education institutions across the APAC region. The product is organized as six interconnected modules — Kinobi Career, Kinobi Student Life, Kinobi Mentoring, Kinobi Global Exchange, Kinobi Scholarship, and Kinobi Service Learning — that collectively cover the non-academic portion of the student lifecycle from enrollment through career outcomes. Underpinning the institutional modules is a student-facing layer that includes an AI-powered resume builder with 50+ ATS-friendly templates, a job portal with virtual career fair functionality, an interview simulator, practice question sets, and 120+ hours of career-prep course content. The platform is delivered as a cloud-based, multi-tenant SaaS with LinkedIn and Google SSO integrations and an analytics dashboard for institutional reporting.

The business model combines two distinct revenue mechanics. The primary monetisation layer is institutional SaaS subscriptions sold via enterprise field sales, with quote-based pricing and a modular add-on structure (e.g., virtual career fair purchased separately by Singapore Institute of Management). The secondary layer is a freemium student-facing product that drives bottom-up adoption — 1.2M+ active users create 25,000+ resumes weekly — and serves as a lead-generation funnel into institutional contracts. A white-label variant, Kinobi Schools, allows institutions to rebrand the platform, creating an additional distribution channel. The company is ISO 27001 certified and holds no disclosed external institutional investment beyond a $1M seed round in December 2021; it remains founder-owned and privately held under co-founders Benjamin Wong (CEO), Hafiz Kasman (COO), and Joshua Phua (CTO).

Kinobi serves 60+ paying higher-education institutions and 200+ university partners across Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Australia, with named customers including SIM, PSB Academy, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, and Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta. Its go-to-market combines enterprise direct sales (demo-request CTAs, 30-minute sales calls) with product-led growth through free student tools. Marketing is primarily content-driven, anchored on case studies with measurable outcomes such as 93% user success rate, 1,200+ students participating in virtual career fairs, and 5/5 student ratings for mentoring sessions. The company operates from Jakarta (primary headquarters, International Financial Centre Tower) and Singapore (regional office, Suntec Tower One).

Name

Kinobi

Legal name

Kinobi

Website

https://kinobi.tech

Company type

Private

Founded year

2020

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Kinobi is a Singapore-based SaaS company selling an integrated, six-module student-success platform — covering career services, mentoring, exchange, scholarships, and service learning — to 60+ higher-education institutions across five APAC countries, supplemented by free AI-powered student tools.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Higher Education Student Success Software

NAICS

Educational Support Services (61171)

SIC

Services-Educational Services (8200)

akta.pro primary industry

Essay, Resume & Portfolio Coaching Platforms (EDAFAMAD)

akta.pro secondary industry

Mentoring, Coaching, Alumni Networking & Peer Support Platforms (EDAFAMAN)

Keywords

• Student success software
• Higher education SaaS
• Career management platform
• Campus operations software
• AI resume builder

Headquarters

HQ city

Singapore

HQ country

Singapore

HQ region

Asia

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Institutional SaaS Subscription: Higher education institutions subscribe to Kinobi's platform and purchase modules/features. Institutions like SIM have purchased additional features such as virtual career fair. Subscription covers multiple departments and workflows across campus.
2. Student Self-Serve (Freemium Base): Students access free tools including resume builder with 50+ templates, job portal browsing, and interview practice questions. Revenue is driven by institutional adoption rather than direct student payments.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Kinobi provides an all-in-one SaaS platform for higher education institutions to manage non-academic student operations and for students to prepare for careers. The platform bundles six institutional modules—Career, Student Life, Mentoring, Global Exchange, Scholarship, and Service Learning—with student-facing tools such as an AI-powered resume builder, job portal, interview simulator, and a library of career courses, sold primarily via institutional subscriptions across the APAC region.

Product overview

Kinobi is an all-in-one SaaS platform for holistic student success management in higher education institutions. The platform operates as a unified ecosystem combining six integrated modules — Kinobi Career, Kinobi Student Life, Kinobi Mentoring, Kinobi Global Exchange, Kinobi Scholarship, and Kinobi Service Learning — alongside student-facing tools including Resume Builder, Job Portal, Interview Simulator, Practice Questions, Courses, and Mentoring. The portfolio covers the full non-academic student lifecycle from career preparation and resume building through job search, interview preparation, extracurricular management, mentoring, global exchange, scholarship administration, and alumni engagement. The platform is designed for multi-institution use across the APAC region.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Kinobi Career: Full-suite of career preparation tools, including AI-enabled resume builder and internship portal.
• Kinobi Student Life
• Kinobi Mentoring
• Kinobi Global Exchange
• Kinobi Scholarship
• Kinobi Service Learning
• Kinobi Schools

Products and services

• Kinobi Career

Quantifiable outcome

• 93% User Success Rate
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers4 records

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration2 records

AI capability4 records

Feature11 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• Singapore Institute of Management (SIM)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerSIM uses Kinobi for resume tools, job portal, and virtual career fairs for learners across SIM and its partner universities. SIM has expanded the partnership by purchasing additional features including virtual career fair functionality. The partnership has driven significant engagement with 1,200+ students participating in career events.
• PSB AcademycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPSB Academy uses Kinobi's platform with approximately 400 students registered, 100+ companies, and 330+ jobs posted. Students rate mentoring sessions 5/5 and recommend to peers.
• Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerUMY partnered with Kinobi to help students find internships or jobs with ATS-friendly resume support. UMY registered partner companies into the job portal.

Scale indicators9 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Symplicity: Symplicity is a higher education SaaS platform offering career services, student conduct, and student success modules to universities globally. It is the closest direct competitor to Kinobi in the non-academic student lifecycle space, with overlapping modules in career services and mentoring.
• Handshake: Handshake is a career services and job platform connecting college students with employers, focused on US institutions. It directly competes with Kinobi Career and Kinobi's job portal functionality, particularly around employer partnerships and student job matching.
• 12Twenty: 12Twenty provides career services, student outcomes tracking, and alumni engagement software to universities. It overlaps directly with Kinobi Career and Kinobi Mentoring modules, serving a similar institutional buyer with comparable features.
• PeopleGrove: PeopleGrove offers mentoring, alumni networking, and career preparation platforms for higher education institutions. It competes with Kinobi Mentoring and parts of Kinobi Career, targeting the same institutional buyers with similar module-based offerings.
• Graduway: Graduway provides alumni engagement and mentoring software to universities and schools. It overlaps with Kinobi's mentoring and alumni networking capabilities, serving higher education institutions with comparable platform economics.
• College Central: College Central provides career services platforms including job boards, resume banks, and career fair management for colleges and universities. It directly competes with Kinobi Career and the job portal functionality, targeting similar institutional buyers.

Emerging players

• Riipen: Riipen connects students with industry projects and work-integrated learning opportunities through a SaaS platform. It intersects with Kinobi Career around employer-student matching and experiential learning, though with a narrower scope focused on project-based work.
• Forage: Forage provides free virtual job simulations and career preparation content for students, partnering with employers and universities. It overlaps with Kinobi's interview preparation and courses functionality, though it lacks the broader institutional SaaS layer.

Broad incumbents

• Workday Student: Workday Student is part of Workday's enterprise cloud suite for higher education, covering academic and administrative operations. While broader than Kinobi, it competes for institutional budgets and IT mindshare, particularly with large universities evaluating end-to-end platforms.
• Salesforce Education Cloud: Salesforce Education Cloud offers CRM and student engagement capabilities for educational institutions. As a broader enterprise platform, it overlaps with Kinobi's student lifecycle management and competes for institutional technology budgets, especially at larger universities.

Market position

Strengths1 record

Weaknesses1 record

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Kinobi