London, United Kingdom: Today Edge Investments announced it has closed a £3m investment into pioneering ed-tech platform Springpod, the UK’s leading career and university experiential learning provider for young people.

Springpod supports school students by helping them access high-quality virtual tasters of university courses before they apply and online work experience as they take their first steps into a career. Clients include one third of UK universities and employers including Airbus, Siemens, Vodafone, Fujitsu, the NHS and many more.

Hannah Williamson, Edge Investment Manager said:

“Edge is thrilled to be partnering with Springpod, to power the next phase of its growth. We are excited about supporting the team to achieve their mission, enabling every young person to experience a university course or career, before they apply. Due to a lack of advice, young people often choose the wrong career or course. This has major implications for their future and high costs for universities & employers when students drop out. Springpod partners with universities and employers to create experiential learning programmes, empowering students by providing equal access to opportunity.”

Sam Hyams, Founder and CEO of Springpod said:

“We are delighted to partner with Edge and are excited to draw upon their extensive creative economy expertise. We pride ourselves on creating Netflix-quality content for young people to experience careers and courses with leading employers and universities. Edge’s focus on driving social mobility for young people and backing innovative, creative start-ups aligns perfectly with Springpod. We are excited to scale our impact together from the 400,000 young people we have supported to date, to millions.”

• Springpod serves a diverse audience, with 45% of students identifying as BAME, 63% as female. 22% report being recipients of free school meals.
• 400,000 students now have a Springpod account.
• Pre-programme, 50% of students say they have poor awareness of a potential career and 50% say they are not confident about finding a job.
• Post-programme, 99% of students report they have a “good” or “excellent” awareness of a career and 91% of students are “confident” or “very confident” about finding a job in the future.

About Edge

Edge is a passionate creative-tech investor, providing access to venture capital finance for pioneering creative companies. Despite the size of the creative economy, businesses within it have often struggled to attract investment. Edge changes that by providing funding and an unrivalled network of creative and technology experts, to help drive portfolio companies forward at every stage, from Seed to Growth and beyond.

Edge invests in three pillar sectors: Media, Education and Entertainment, discovering the next sector-defining companies. Edge is focussed on powering digitally enabled businesses to success in the following key sub-sectors – Ed-Tech, Productivity tools, VR/AR and AI, Metaverse, e-Sports, Gaming, Wellness, Social Media and Deep Tech.

As a huge employer of young people, the creative economy is a key driver of social mobility. It has the potential to propel brilliant ideas into the spotlight, wherever they come from, as well as to create valuable new companies. The creative economy will deliver 1 million new jobs in the UK alone by 2030. Creativity is now considered to be in the top 3 skills required for high-paying careers in the 21st Century.

About Springpod

Springpod is the UK’s largest career and university experiential learning provider for young people, working with over 200 multinational companies and universities. Springpod has supported 400,000 school students and enabled young people to gain meaningful, high-quality experience through virtual programmes with universities and employers.

Young people choose the wrong career or course for them because they have no opportunity to try them before they apply. This has huge implications for their futures and astronomical costs for universities & employers as students drop out. 1 In 3 students drop out of college In the US and 1 In 2 young people drop out of apprenticeships in the UK. These attrition rates cost US universities and employers $16bn per year.

Springpod’s immersive and interactive virtual experiences are developed in collaboration with employers & education institutions. Combining Netflix-quality video productions, Interactive exercises and job simulations, they prepare students for their chosen pathway and provide equal access to careers and courses to young people from all backgrounds.

With Springpod, employers and education providers build brand awareness and grow a diverse talent pipeline that they can convert into high-quality and low-churn applications.

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