Games-based learning platform levels up with major funding round
Bolton’s Emile Education, a games-based learning platform used by teachers across the UK, has secured a £250,000 funding round from GC Angels and private investors to expand and develop its offering.
In 2013, Cyber Coach Smart was set up to deliver online dancing exercises to primary school children, giving them access to world-champion instructors. Picked up by 15 per cent of primary schools across the UK, Cyber Coach Smart was the predecessor for Emile Education, which took this idea and adapted it for core curriculum subjects.
A collaboration between game developers and academics from Manchester Metropolitan University under a Knowledge Transfer Partnership funded by Innovate UK led to the development of Emile Education, which was initially focused on a pedagogical approach of “Content Language Integrated Learning” and later expanded to other core subjects, now including maths and English.
Emile Education was launched to schools for free at the beginning of the first lockdown in March 2021. As a recommended source by the Department for Education, 5000 teachers signed up to the platform. In the same period, researchers at the University of Manchester found that in 4000 schools which used the platform, pupils experienced a 25 per cent increase in recalling their times tables.
Following the investment, Emile Education is seeking to make the platform available to parents at home through the app, ‘Fun Maths Games with Emile’, enabling them to support their children’s school learning with extracurricular activity.
The £250,000 investment was driven by GC Angels, which invested £100,000. In addition to this, Emile Education received £150,000 from private angel investors, who were drawn to invest in the Greater Manchester-based business under the Innovator Visa.
Glen Jones, managing director at Emile Education, said: “Home-schooling during lockdown has taught so many parents how important education is to our children. We know that education doesn’t stop at school, so we are really pleased to receive this investment thanks to GC Angels and the private investors to develop an app that parents can use at home to make extracurricular learning fun. At Emile Education, we’re committed to developing our offering based on extensive research, and we’re looking forward to working with more experts to expand our offering to cover the broader education curriculum.”
Jess Jackson, head of investment at GC Angels: “We’ve worked with Glen and the team at Emile Education for a long time, and this funding round is the result of years of hard work. Greater Manchester has a host of innovative EdTech start-ups, and we were thrilled to draw investment from overseas to support the region and primary school children across the country.”
