Coding school startup Cypher has closed a seed funding round of £422,000.
The majority of the investment came from 313 investors on crowdfunding platform Seedrs – taking total funding to date to £1.2 million – and values the business at £5.9m.
Cypher was founded in 2016 by tech entrepreneur Elizabeth Tweedale and offers creatively themed coding courses for children aged 6 to 12 with the aim of inspiring children to learn coding, computational thinking, problem solving and communication.
It pivoted to a global online offering during the COVID-19 pandemic last year and will launch a new subscription service in the USA in September.
The recent raise will also go towards continuing investment in platform development, making key hires for the business and expanding the startup’s reach across the UK and globally.
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With the subscription, children can start with Cypher at age six, and by the time they reach age 12 they will be technically literate, competent across multiple coding languages, as well as having learnt about healthy screen time, looking after their mental health and online safety.
“Although a sudden transition, the last year has allowed us to accelerate and develop our online offering, reaching thousands of children from 21 countries globally to help teach them coding, the language of the future workforce,” said CEO and co-founder Elizabeth Tweedale.
“This funding round helps us to finalise the development of our subscription offering. Cypher has recently become a STEM accredited provider alongside companies like Apple & Disney.
“The development of our proprietary curriculum via a monthly subscription, where children can attend a class every week across multiple coding languages and creative themes, with access to a dedicated teacher, opens up coding to many more children globally.”