The UK education startup Jolt has raised an additional €12.7 million for its accessible, flexible approach to business classes, according to EU-startups.com.
The new funding round, led by Balderton Capital, brings Jolt’s total funding raised to €20.9 million.
The company was founded in 2015, launched a marketplace for live business class videos in 2016, and opened its first campus in Tel Aviv the following year. It now offers three campuses in London, seven in Israel, and is gearing up to launch in Manhattan this year.
In London, Jolt has now eclipsed the London Business School in terms of student enrollment. Their program is about 18 times cheaper, costing about £175 a month, or £4,500 for an entire “NAMBA” or “Not-An-MBA” program.
Jolt is aimed at professionals with undergraduate degrees and work experience, who want to enter a new industry or otherwise boost their career, without interrupting their life to enroll in a traditional education program.
Students are not required to complete the entire program, and courses are conducted on a rolling, monthly basis. They can even be “paused” to help accommodate students with busy lives and work obligations.
According to Jolt co-founder and CEO Roei Deutsch:
“Higher education is in a bubble in which trillions is being invested in something that works for a small minority of people. A staggering $2.3 trillion a year is invested into higher education despite the fact that data shows 79% of graduates don’t believe it’s working as it should… At Jolt, we’re creating a high-end, in-person, widely global and affordable higher education platform that people can actually see as an alternative to traditional higher education.”
But the accessibility and convenience of Jolt doesn’t come at the expense of getting a quality education. Jolt’s instructors include leaders from companies like Google, Netflix, Tesla, and Trustlab.
“This ensures our curriculum is as up-to-date and as relevant as possible,” Deutsch says.
“We have a thorough streaming process for hiring lecturers so we only use the very best talent, and at the end of each lesson, students rate the content and delivery to create a constant feedback loop that ensures quality and value for money for our students.”
Enrollments have grown 25 percent month on month, with student satisfaction rates 40 percent higher than in traditional MBA programs.
Jolt plans to use the new funding to expand in Israel and the UK, and for their move into Manhattan.
Photo by Bjoertvedt [CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]