Matt Wilkerson Email & Phone Number

At Extern, we’re solving the experience gap. Extern created the remote Externship, a skill-building work experience that is easier for students to access, and easier for companies to run, than an internship. Our mission is to help anyone discover and launch their career through professional experiences available anywhere at any time. Since 2020, we’ve created and powered Externships on behalf of companies from Fortune 500s to startups that have enabled tens of thousands of students to build real experience and open doors to incredible opportunity. After spending $100K on average for a 4-year degree, graduates find that almost 40% of entry level jobs on Linkedin required 3+ years of work experience. Internships are how many college students get this kind of experience, but the demand for good internships outstrips the supply. Internship programs are difficult to scale, they favor students who already have social capital, and they’re time-consuming for employers to run.Externships are short, online, project-based work experiences that employers can offer to hundreds of students using less resource and employee time than it would take to support an intern. Extern makes the complex process of running an Externship completely turnkey with software and industry experts which in turn makes professional experience more accessible to more students.By making work experience more accessible, Extern is driving the rapid mobility and upskilling needed for a new economy. We envision a world where anyone can access work experience as a form of education – no matter their background, experience, or socio-economic status. Come join our movement to reshape work, education, and credentialing for future generations with the Externship.Backed by Y Combinator, Foundation Capital, Launch Fund, University Ventures, and Learn Capital.

Spotify (public listing), LedgerX (acquired), ClassPass (acquired), Accion Systems, Bevi Technologies, Mogul

New York, New York, Us

Given the lack of meaningful career support for college students, Paragon One created the "career center-as-a-service" to connect students with industry professionals for career discovery and coaching to help them land competitive internships and jobs. During 3 to 6 month online programs, students were matched with experts across a range of careers for guidance as they learned about career paths, prepared their resumes, and practiced for interviews. Through various experiments and iterations, Paragon One learned that coaching was a vitamin, but getting access to early professional experiences was the pain that needed to be solved. So in late 2019 we shut down Paragon One as it stood and used our learnings to create the Externship model for what would become Extern.

Shanghai, Cn

New Pathway Education & Technology Group is an internationally focused academy based in China catering to both the expat and local community. NPETG caters to students in middle school and high school, offering students a creative, interactive and effective platform to matriculate into universities around the world. Acquired by EIC Education.

Merged with Design Milk on the ASX in 2019. AHAlife is a curated destination for discovering 1,000+ designers & artisans in 45+ countries. We built a luxury e-commerce marketplace that scoured the globe to find exceptional, quality objects for every aspect of your life. AHAlife raised over $23M in VC funding to empower independent designers & artisans to thrive online.

Menlo Park, California, Us

$28Bn under management. Sourced, diligenced, executed, and supported late stage investments across the consumer internet including: Intelligent Beauty / JustFab (board observer), Groupon, TheStreet.com, and eBags (board observer).

New York, Ny, Us

Executed debt, equity, and M&A transactions for telecom, media, and digital companies including: $20Bn takeover of Clear Channel Communications by a private equity consortium (largest announced media buyout at the time), $100M IPO of online TV aggregator JumpTV, $60M Series C private placement for online TV ad network Brightcove, and advisory engagement for newspaper consortium considering the acquisition of a publicly-traded auto lead generator.

Bachelor Of Science (B.S.), Computer Science & Engineering

Bachelor Of Science (B.S.), Management Science

Education record