Over the last year, Makers has been working on raising growth funding to help scale our mission and transform even more lives through inclusive routes into tech careers. It’s the third and largest round of funding Makers has secured since it was established in 2012 and we’re beyond excited about the possibilities this opens up for tech talent across the UK.
What is growth funding?
Building a business from the ground up is expensive. Funding is essential if you have ambitions to scale fast. Growth funding provides scale-ups with access to external money to invest in their vision. It is a type of equity-based financing and it’s usually provided by private equity and venture capital firms.
This round of funding was led by BGF, a leading growth capital investor in the UK and Ireland. We’re also delighted to welcome back returning investors Forward Partners and Educapital. This combination of new and returning investors is an endorsement of the work we’re doing, the progress we’ve made, and the scope for greater impact.
We’ve raised the money — what next?
With the funding round now complete, it’s time for action.
The first thing we will do is expand the range of tech programmes we offer, starting with Data and Quality Engineering in early 2023. We will be able to transform more lives — our goal is 5000 over the next 3 years — and provide a broader range of tech disciplines to our hiring partners.
The second is to continue to extend our regional presence, building on our recent rapid expansion outside of London.
Thirdly we will take the Engineering Leadership Programme we have been developing — focused on accelerating senior engineers on their journey into leadership — to a wider market in the months ahead.
We’re committed to tackling the challenges facing those seeking jobs and those who provide them, by increasing the supply of highly trained and diverse candidates to address the significant labour gap in the UK tech industry.
Why is this needed?
The global tech talent shortage is set to double from 40m to 85m by 2030 and hiring junior talent through traditional graduate schemes is lengthy and expensive, which only perpetuates this situation. Only 50% of young people in England attend university and only 18% of Computer Science students identify as women. As such, many organisations are missing out on the experience, innovation, insight and positive impact diversity brings to the table.
At the same time, the great resignation is producing a goldmine of talent with 40% of adults planning to change jobs in the next 3–6 months and 50% of adults who change jobs changing careers entirely.
At Makers, we are helping to plug the gap in the market and changing the face of tech through disruption in recruitment and training.
We select students based on potential, not qualifications, and use an educational approach that combines technical excellence and emotional intelligence to equip our students with the skills and growth mindset they need to flourish and excel in the tech industry.
What is our starting point?
We’re building from a position of strength. Since our founding, Makers has trained more than 3,000 people to become software engineers, and successfully placed talent within thriving businesses including Google and Deloitte Digital.
At Makers, our vision is a tech industry that represents society and where people from all backgrounds can find work that they love. Our outcomes are extremely positive. In addition to free apprenticeship programmes for students, Makers has run 30% of its cohort spaces as scholarships in a bid to drive more diversity in tech and our outcomes are extremely positive.
40% of Makers students to-date are are women (double the UK tech industry average) and 40% are from underrepresented ethnic backgrounds. And our Makers are incredibly successful once they start work — 75% ship code in their first month of work and 75% receive a pay rise or promotion within the first year!
Claudia Harris, CEO of Makers, explains why the funding is so important:
Ten years ago, Makers created an industry in the UK as the first European Coding Bootcamp, paving the way for the numerous non-university routes into a tech career that exist today. Five years ago we embraced the opportunity to work directly with industry and became early providers of software engineering apprenticeships. With this investment we will expand our offer across more technical disciplines, increasing the opportunity for people to switch careers into tech and enabling employers to work with us to fulfil all of their tech talent needs.
Our work is driven by a vision of a tech industry that represents the society it serves and where people from all backgrounds can find work that they love. Tech shapes every aspect of our lives but today is disproportionately run by people from a narrow segment of society. That needs to change. That’s why we recruit students from all backgrounds. From the day we were founded 10 years ago we have never looked at CVs, just potential. And we have always put emotional intelligence front and centre, hiring our Chief Joy Officer in the year we were founded, so that our students have both the technical expertise and growth mindset to thrive in the tech sector.
We are incredibly grateful to our new and existing investors for supporting us as we take another step towards fulfilling our vision.
What do our investors think?
Rahul Satsangi, investor at BGF, explains why BGF decided to be a lead investor:
“Makers represents a unique and exciting opportunity to invest in a fast-growing mission-led business making a real difference promoting diversity in the tech sector. We are looking forward to working with Claudia and her dedicated senior leadership team to help drive the business forward in its next exciting stage of growth.”
Nic Brisbourne, CEO and Managing Partner at Forward Partners explains why they continue to return as investors:
“Forward have been proud backers of Makers since inception. We’re inspired by the vision that Claudia and her team are delivering as they create opportunities and promote diversity across the tech industry — and have been been impressed by the growth and impact that they have achieved so far. We’re excited to see how the team use this funding to further accelerate their progress.”
Litzie Maarek, Founding Partner at Educapital explains why Educapital can continued to support Makers:
“Educapital is proud to continue to support Makers in its development. Makers is a perfect illustration of how technology can drive inclusion, diversity and performance. Claudia and her team have demonstrated in the past their strong ability to build efficient growth, and these new funds are a great opportunity to scale faster and deliver impact.”
All of this is only made possible by our amazing alumni and wider community. We are looking forward to working with our community as we embark on this next phase of the journey!
About the Author
The Makers team is dedicated to transforming lives by building inclusive pathways into tech careers. With a mission to align their success with their students' success, Makers challenges traditional education models by integrating training with employment support, helping aspiring developers find roles where they can thrive.
