Less than one year after securing £150,000 through its first equity crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube, tutor marketplace Tutora announced plans to launch its second initiative through the funding portal.
Tutora, which was launched in mid-2015, stated it aims to help parents find and book private tutors online. The marketplace noted its tutors have taught 3,000 lessons in subjects ranging from Math and English to Spanish and Accounting. The company noted:
“We believe Tutors are looking for new students to fill their timetable, help with collecting payments and an easy way to manage their business. Tutora meets all of these needs. Our website allows parents and students to view clear, informative profiles of the best tutors near them, message them for free, and book and pay for lessons.”
Co-founder of the Tutora, Scott Woodley, explained to Crowdcube:
“Led by Mark [Hughes] and myself, our team has also grown. I was a former teacher and tutor, and I’m now the CEO and leads on product development, whilst overseeing the team. Mark, who was previously a technology analyst for a large investment firm, is our CTO, working alongside Mike, a senior developer, to further develop the platform. Faye, Amber and Harriet offer a wonderful service to our users, whilst Giorgio spreads the word far and wide as our marketing executive.”
Also speaking about Tutora’s other successes, Woodley shared:
“Our success has not only been recognised by our students, tutors and investors. We were recently finalists in TechNorth’s Northern Stars competition, which named us as one of the top 20 startups in the North. We have also been featured in many leading publications, including the Guardian, BBC, The Telegraph and TechRadar (India). Alongside all of this, we have partnered with Pearson, the international publishers, to develop the Tutors’ Guild series of tuition packs, designed to enable tutors to deliver the very best sessions.”
Woodley added that the company’s dream is to become the largest company in the UK’s £6 billion private tutoring industry. He recently shared details Tutora’s Crowdcube campaign with Crowdfund Insider:
“The first investor we met ultimately invested £20k but was initially reluctant to meet our valuation. Having met with so many advisors, we were confident in our discussions as we had already covered many of the points raised. Similarly, we had more belief in ourselves as being investment ready, when we might otherwise had been more malleable to the investor’s demands and gained a worse deal.
“Ultimately, we secured our raise in just four days, a record time for an edtech company on Crowdcube. A part of us wondered whether we could have raised the money at a higher valuation, however, we wanted the raise to be fair, as we want our investors to be comfortable for the longer term. Similarly, we’re now in a good position for a future raise, if this is needed.”
Tutora’s new equity crowdfunding campaign is set to launch at the end of January.
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