Budapest based coding school Codecool raised €3.5m in Series-B round venture capital funding local media reported. The round was lead by Lead Ventures with participation from Hungarian private equity firm PortfoLion. The investment round remains open to other interested VC active in the education technology field in the next six months.
Reportedly Codecool will use the money to further expand internationaly in order to educate as much digital workers as posssible in order to produce IT savy workforce that is much needed at the European market.
“We can see that widescale automation and digitalisation of business processes affects every area from production through logistics, sales and administration, which demands a digitally skilled workforce not only at technology companies but in all industries, be it manufacturing or services”, said Balázs Vinnai, founder of Codecool. “The growth of European and especially Central and Eastern European companies will be defined by how successful they can become in the process widely referred to as digital transformation.”
According to Lead Ventures the number of job vacancies requiring digitally skilled workers is estimated to rise to 700.000 by 2020 only on the EU market. Hence the investment in this Budapest based ITschool.
“We are pleased that our first investment, in harmony with our goals, goes to a successfully growing company with a Hungarian background, which needs a sizeable round of funding to propel its development,” said Ábel Galácz, CEO of Lead Ventures. “Codecool’s approach to training is completely in line with Lead Ventures’s aim to find innovators in the market and support their expansion. Access to capital to fund innovation will be of crucial importance for the future competitiveness of Central and Eastern Europe.”
The shorthage of skilled digital workeforce on the market, but also the outstanding results of the startup are the main reasons that convinced PortfoLion to support Codecool for the second time.
“Codecool campuses provide up-to-date and practice-oriented training, which is demonstrated by the outstanding results of their former students on the job market. PortfoLion supports Codecool’s ambitious plans of regional expansion, as we see that the shortage of skilled workers is a growing problem. Apart from funding, we help reaching the company’s goals with our business and financing expertise” – Jenő Nieder, deputy CEO of PortfoLion comments on the fundraising.
Founded in 2014 by Balazs Vinnai, Gabor Simon and Jozsef Boda, Codecool is an IT education startup that launched a disruptive model for training coding and other digital skills. The startup is aiming to tackle the ever-gaping tech talent shortage in Europe. Codecool prepares the modern employee to meet the challenges of the 21th century job market. It innovates traditional training methods and puts a great emphasis on soft skills development such as conflict solving, business thinking and creating feedback-culture, which are all crucial factors in the modern workplace.
Codecool has so far trained and helped 400 people with no previous qualifications in the digital field and placed them in programming jobs at 100 corporate partners. At the moment, 500 people are studying at 4 campuses operated by the company in Hungary and Poland with this number rising to 800 students as the network of education hubs enters the Romanian market by the end of this year. By 2023 the company plans to open 10 campuses, to develop an alumni network of nearly 10,000 people and to become one of the most significant service providers in Europe in the field of training digital workforce and talent management.
What makes this startup even more attractive is that the company has corporate partners already in 7 countries and is also providing a guaranteed job placement with 99% success rate.
According to official data, the company is dynamically growing, with a revenue of EUR 1,3 million in 2017, EUR 3,2 million last year and aiming at EUR 5 million this year.
Lead Ventures is a venture capital firm that provides funding for Central European early or growth stage companies. Their mission is to identify and support the most promising ventures in the CEE region, encouraging entrepreneurs to interrupt established industries with innovation.
PortfoLion is a Budapest-based venture capital and private equity firm which is part of the OTP Group, one of the largest banking groups in the CEE region. The VC is providing companies with a stable financial background to facilitate their successful entry to the market and their international expansion. PortfoLion is a follow-up investor supporting this startup in their previous Series-A investment.
