Budapest-based IT education start-up Codecool has received 3.5 million euros funding to finance its international expansion, aiming to ease the shortage of digital workers in Europe.
In 2016, Codecool launched a disruptive model for training coding and other digital skills, addressing those companies which reported that missing digital skills were the main hurdle to their digital transformation. Codecool has so far trained and helped 400 people with no previous qualifications in the digital field and placed them in programming jobs at 100 corporate partners.
“We can see that widescale automation and digitalisation of business processes affects every area from production through logistics, sales and administration, which demands a digitally skilled workforce not only at technology companies but in all industries, be it manufacturing or services”, said Balázs Vinnai, founder of Codecool. “The growth of European and especially Central and Eastern European companies will be defined by how successful they can become in the process widely referred to as digital transformation.”
The new funding for Codecool has come from two Budapest-based venture capital fund management firms, Lead Ventures and PortfoLion.
“We are pleased that our first investment, in harmony with our goals, goes to a successfully growing company with a Hungarian background, which needs a sizeable round of funding to propel its development,” said Ábel Galácz, CEO of Lead Ventures. “Codecool’s approach to training is completely in line with Lead Ventures’s aim to find innovators in the market and support their expansion. Access to capital to fund innovation will be of crucial importance for the future competitiveness of Central and Eastern Europe.”
At the moment 500 people are studying at four campuses operated by Codecool in Hungary and Poland, but this number will rise to 800 students when the network of education hubs enters the Romanian market by the end of this year. The company plans to open 10 campuses and to develop an alumni network of nearly 10,000 people by 2023.
