Losses have widened at an EdTech company founded by Euan Blair, son of former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Multiverse, which is focused on professional apprenticeships, made a pre-tax loss of £14.2 million in its last financial year – a sixth straight year of losses and up from £10.9m in 2021 and just over £5m in 2020.
It reported revenues of £27.3m for the year to 31st March 2022.
Founded in 2016, the London company – valued at $1.7 billion by a mammoth £175m Series D funding round last summer – offers tuition-free, paid programs in areas including software engineering, digital marketing and data analytics that typically last 12-15 months. They combine education with on-the-job training.
Co-founded with Sophie Adelman, it also uses predictive software to match apprentices with more than 300 companies based on their aptitude and attitude. Clients include Google, Facebook, Morgan Stanley, Depop and Jaguar Land Rover.
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“Mandating college degrees, and making admissions officers the gatekeepers for great careers, means leaving out thousands of talented individuals,” said CEO Blair – now an MBE – at the time of the last funding round driven by US venture capital.
“There has never been a more pressing time to create an alternative to university education that is equitable and inclusive, and there is an incredible opportunity before us to change the status quo with apprenticeships.
A spokesperson for Multiverse said: “We’re at the forefront of growing the number of apprenticeship opportunities in both the UK and the US, doubling the number of apprentices we’re training, expanding our geographic reach, and increasing our team of world-class coaches.
“We have made significant investments across all teams at Multiverse to set ourselves up for greater scale in the year ahead. We’re focusing our efforts on supporting a rapidly growing number of apprentices, raising awareness, and building an outstanding alternative to university through apprenticeships.”