Today UK-based edtech MyTutor, a leading platform for online interactive one-to-one tuition for secondary school-aged pupils, announces that it has raised around €4.4 million. The round was led by existing investor Mobeus Equity Partners, and brings total funding to date to around €15.6 million.
The funding will be used to further develop and increase the availability of MyTutor’s platform, to meet growing demand and ensure that children get the most from their education, particularly with the major disruptions caused by the ongoing pandemic.
MyTutor was co-founded in 2013 by Bertie Hubbard, James Grant and Robert Grabiner with a mission to bring life changing tuition to all. Tutors are subject experts from the UK’s top universities with recent exam experience, and each one is personally interviewed to ensure they can explain topics in a way teens can understand. In 2018, Bertie and James were featured in ‘Forbes 30 under 30’ list of the world’s top social entrepreneurs, and have so far grown the team to 50.
Since MyTutor’s inception, its online network of tutors has facilitated over 1 million bookings, with 100,000 families in the UK relying on MyTutor for one-to-one tuition. MyTutor has also just been announced as one of four tutoring companies working with The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) to launch a new online tuition pilot to help disadvantaged pupils as schools begin to reopen; MyTutor will provide support for 1,000 of the 1,600 pupils in the programme.
Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, a 2019 report by educational charity, the Sutton Trust, found that over 27% of children in the UK and 41% in London were receiving learning support from a tutor. However, due to the pandemic, the majority of school children in the UK were forced, near-overnight, into homeschooling, putting a huge amount of pressure on already stretched parents to support their child’s learning. Online tutoring has been a lifeline for many, helping children tackle tricky topics, building up confidence and providing motivation and engagement while in lockdown. MyTutor has seen demand more than double since school closures began, as families embraced online one-to-one learning to ensure the educational progress of their children.
Even though some children in the UK are now returning to school, the need for tutors is expected to grow. Parents across the country are looking for extra support to ensure their children remain on track with their studies after this incredibly disruptive period and an extended amount of time off school.
Bertie Hubbard, co-founder and CEO of MyTutor comments: “The current pandemic has impacted every single UK family, and there is now an urgent need for academic support to ensure school children get back on track with their education. Through our consumer-facing platform and partnerships such as the EEF’s online tuition pilot, we know that we can make a difference and reduce learning gaps despite these unprecedented circumstances – and we’re delighted by the continued support of our investors. While the pandemic has seen a whole generation of parents experience the benefits of online tuition we believe this is just the start of a more permanent shift.”
Matt Mead, Venture Partner at Mobeus Equity Partners comments: “Since the early days of MyTutor it has been clear to us that Bertie and the team have created a service that has a real, positive impact, with great potential to reduce inequality of opportunities for UK school children. With this capital injection we will ensure that MyTutor can keep up with demand at a time when online one-to-one tuition has become more important than ever to prevent the widening of an already existing learning gap. We know that the company’s potential to have a real impact on our schooling system and wider society reaches far beyond the current pandemic. MyTutor is setting the precedent for a new normal for tuition and we are excited to continue on this journey together.”
