Image credits: Zen Educate
London-based Zen Educate, a platform that connects schools with temporary and full-time teachers and teaching assistants, announced on Thursday that it has secured £19.3M (approximately €22M) in a Series A extension round of funding.
The investment round was co-led by Brighteye Ventures and Adjuvo, with participation from several notable private investors and family offices, including Simon Rogerson and Chris Hulatt, the founders of Octopus Group.
To date, the company has raised £28.7M (approximately €32.8M) in funding.
Slava Kremerman, co-founder and CEO of Zen Educate, says, “This significantly oversubscribed extension to our Series A validates the progress we’ve been making in our mission to change the world of temporary work in schools. We are proud to say we have saved the UK education system millions of pounds each year, which is why we are excited about our growth and expansion into the US market.”
Zen Educate says it plans to use the funds to continue growing its platform across the UK, expand into the United States, and make its first acquisitions to consolidate the market.
The fresh capital injection will also help double the company’s headcount from 100 to 200 over the next six months.
Zen Educate: What you need to know
Slava Kremerman and Oren Cohen founded Zen Educate in 2017 as an ethical online alternative to recruitment agencies for schools and teachers.
By providing a one-stop solution to staffing needs, Zen Educate helps schools save time and money while ensuring that teachers are placed in positions that fit their skills and experience.
Zen Educate says it provides teachers with all the helpful information they need to work at each location and better ways to communicate and manage relationships with the schools.
The platform uses proprietary software to perform extensive checks during the teacher sign-up process to ensure all professionals listed are thoroughly vetted before a final manual review of each profile.
Zen Educate claims to have saved the UK education system approximately £10M that would have otherwise been wasted on recruitment agency fees, and connected thousands of teachers to job opportunities.
The company has tripled in size year-on-year and is approaching nearly one million hours of cover booked on its platform in the last 12 months. Zen Educate is headquartered in London, with offices in three other UK cities and two American cities.
Investor
Brighteye is an edtech venture capital fund in Europe, leveraging deep experience and relationships in tech, education, media, and VC. Investing at Seed and Series A stages, the VC helps portfolio companies refine products, build partnerships, and scale across geographies.
Ben Wirz, Partner at Brighteye Ventures, says, “We back leaders in EdTech, and having witnessed the outstanding execution of the Zen Educate founders and the business’ growth in the UK and US, we’re delighted to be reinvesting. School staffing has become a more pressing need on both sides of the Atlantic in the wake of Covid. Zen Educate’s platform leverages technology to provide timely, high quality, and affordable staffing – putting the company in a unique position to impact schools, teachers, and students when the need has never been greater.”
Tim Throsby, newly appointed Non-Executive Director of Zen Educate, adds, “I am very excited to join the Zen Educate Board. Having spent a lot of time with the team, I firmly believe this is an exceptional business doing genuine good in the world.”
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