Innovative literacy initiative Pobble has secured £900,000 of new investment as part of its latest funding round to help develop the online platform’s capabilities and keep it at the forefront of educational technology.
Pobble was initially formed by Yorkshire-based teachers as Lend Me Your Literacy in 2013. It boosts children’s writing by spurring their imaginations and motivation for learning by bringing technology into the classroom and harnessing the inspirational power of online sharing. Evidence has shown that Pobble increases literacy standards by up to two times the expected rate.
Pobble was this year named as a ‘Grow’ company in the Futures category at BETT, the country’s leading event for educational technology.
This follows a string of accolades for the business including being named the People’s Champion Award at Startups.co.uk, at the Global Social Venture Competition and at the Crowdcube Awards. They were also named in the top 100 UK start-ups for 2015 by Startups.co.uk and won the European Business Plan Competition 2015 in Rotterdam, as well as being inducted into the highly prestigious London Business School Incubator and Microsoft Ventures Accelerator programmes.
Pobble works by giving children an audience for their work via a global classroom wall. Well over 40,000 pieces of work are now hosted on the platform, with users in more than 100 countries. Pobble also offers teachers free daily lesson plans, and has developed an innovative Literacy Through Sport programme in many parts of the UK, which seeks to combine physical activity with the improvement of educational outcomes. It has been praised for its impact by teachers, businesses and famous authors including Michael Morpurgo and Anthony Horowitz.
The new funding round, which closed on Friday, was comfortably oversubscribed and saw investment from more than 40 investors, the vast majority who have an educational commitment. The extra finance will be used to develop the product itself so that it supports teachers to improve their pupils’ writing even more, pushing the platform’s capabilities further and making it an ever more essential tool in a teacher’s arsenal.
With the company already in commercial relationships with several hundred schools in the UK and abroad, this latest round of funding will help Pobble continue the heady momentum they have built up over the past two years.
Pobble founder and Chief Executive Officer Jon Smith, an MBA graduate of the London Business School, said:
“In little over two years, Pobble has gone from strength to strength. From our engagement with a growing number of schools at home and abroad to the increasing recognition we are receiving as an emergent enterprise, we can be proud of our achievements to date.
“However, we have some even more exciting plans for developing the platform and the business in 2016. This new round of funding will go a long way to helping us to achieve our ambitions to boost literacy and a lasting passion for writing in children all around the world.”
