Bedrock, the online resource that aims to improve the English literacy of students in schools across the globe, has started crowdfunding on Crowdcube to achieve its £100,000 target.
Launched towards the end of 2015, Bedrock has been sold to 29 schools internationally, with 85 percent quarterly user base growth and over £40k revenue so far.
“Each word is woven into our own original text, ensuring students read regularly as well. Inbuilt assessment feeds data back to the teacher, enabling them to easily track progress. We launched 18 months ago and have sold to 29 schools in the UK, Canada and Asia. 12,000 students are now improving their English using Bedrock. Since launch, our user base has grown, on average, by 85% per quarter.”
This is clearly a promising market to be a part of as it continues to grow and is estimated to be worth over $220bn by 2020.
Founded by Aaron Leary, a former English teacher, Bedrock was built to help students improve their vocabulary and reading skills enabling them to express their ideas more easily.
“We believe Bedrock is in an exciting phase of development. Since launching the first version of our product 21 months ago, we have generated over £40,000 revenue – without a dedicated sales and marketing team. Now, as we’re prepared for growth, we forecast £230k revenue in the next 12 months.”
With funds raised on Crowdcube, Bedrock will grow their sales and marketing team, as well as the product development team.
The team are confident in their exit strategy. Recent acquisitions in the market have shown more established companies are capable of expansion. Oxford University Press purchased MyMaths for over £3 million, Hellman & Friedman recently paid over $1.1 billion for Renaissance Learning, owners of Accelerated Reader. Further start-ups, such as Pobble, have gained substantial investment in excess of over £1m through Crowdcube and experienced edtech angels.
Bedrock has 24 days left of crowdfunding and has already raised over £23,000. They offer an equity of 11.15 percent.