Knoma, a financial services company that provides finance solution for tech educational courses, has raised over £21 million in a Series A funding round.
The London-based startup secured the funds from a host of investors including Global Founders Capital, Rocket Internet, Fasanara Capital and Seedrs. Angel Investor LendInvest Chairman Christian Faes also participated in the round, according to Tech.eu.
Founded in 2019, Knoma helps lifelong learners finance their tech courses by spreading the cost via loans. The startup offers users access to up to £10,000, at zero fees and zero interest, and allows them to spread the cost of the course over 12 months with a flexible repayment schedule that works best for them.
Knoma is on a mission to revolutionize education by giving everyone access to life-long learning with a simple, zero-interest payment solution. It believes that education should be accessed in a short, but frequent manner, at a lower price point and a focus on gaining technical, digital and data skill sets. Knoma helps people looking to future proof their career or move into new areas of work by reducing the barrier of payment and removing the pain point of sourcing technical courses.
Speaking about the company, Brett Shanley, Founder and CEO, Knoma, said in a statement,
“The future of work in the digital economy means continuous learning from 16-65 years old, or as the American’s say K to grey. We are looking to democratize funding of tech and coding courses by removing barriers for upfront payment or having to take out high interest loans. We don’t believe in charging our users and have instead opted to build a business model that charges a merchant fee to our partners and is free to the end-user (the student).”
Knoma partners with leading tech and coding schools, allowing them to recruit and on-board new students by placing a ‘Pay with Knoma’ button on their checkout. The company has launched its lifelong learning payment solution with a number of tech and coding schools, including Code Institute, Wild Code School, CodeClan, NorthCoders, Learning People and more. Users can choose a course offered by these schools, and then hit ‘Pay with Knoma’ at checkout to spread tuition over a maximum 12 months.
Some of the popular courses include Professional Software Development, Python for Web Apps and Data, Cybersecurity Analyst, Full Stack Software Development Diploma, Data Analyst, Certified Full Stack Web & Software Engineer Bootcamp, Business Intelligence & Data Visualization Analyst, Web Design and UI-UX, Web Development, Software Developer Course, Programming Fundamentals with Python, and more.
According to Tech.eu, Knoma will initially focus on the UK market, and plans to expand globally in the coming years.
