SAN FRANCISCO — March 24, 2020 — Holberton, making software engineering education affordable and accessible globally, announced today that it has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Redpoint eventures with new investor Pearson Ventures and participation by existing investors Daphni, Imaginable Futures, Reach Capital and Trinity Ventures.
“Since our founding in Silicon Valley in 2015, we have had a vision of making software engineering education affordable and accessible to everybody around the world,” said Julien Barbier, CEO and co-founder of Holberton. “We started with one small campus of 30 students in San Francisco to prove our model. Today we have a network of 18 campuses across all continents except Antarctica.”
With its partners, Holberton has provided education to thousands of students around the world, creating new tools, processes, programs and methods needed to send students into high-paying jobs at top technology companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google, LinkedIn, Tesla and more.
“To expand our reach and make more institutions benefit from our knowledge and technology, we now provide our technology, tools, programs and methods to our current Holberton School partners, as well as universities and companies, to complement, extend or fill gaps in training students or employees,” Barbier said.
Holberton is committed to help its customers deliver the highest-quality education possible, at scale — whether a Holberton School franchisee, a bootcamp, a university or a company. Holberton is dedicated to help one million students around the world access first-rate education by 2030, directly via its Holberton School Network, or indirectly with education institutions and training centers. To reach that goal, Holberton constantly innovates and expands how it delivers education.
Building on its success with Holberton Schools, Holberton today provides a portfolio of programs and tools that customers can pick and choose among to make their teachers and students successful. Holberton’s offering includes a complete off-the-shelf franchise model, as well as tailored curricula, auto-graded projects, tools and methods. Customers — who best understand their student needs, job market requirements, and unique accessibility challenges — use what they want or need to fulfill their education mission.
Today Holberton customers include franchise campuses, education providers like Pearson and universities like Honoris United Universities. By unbundling its historical offerings, Holberton has created a new concept that it calls the “OS of Education”. Customers use what they need to either build entire new schools, or supplement their current education delivery. Holberton’s “OS of Education” also lends itself to a wide range of education delivery, beyond software engineer training.
“Holberton’s OS of Education concept opens up the company’s proven tools to a broader education market,” said Manoel Lemos, managing partner at Redpoint eventures. “They’ve proven successful in breaking down barriers of cost and access while delivering a world-class curriculum. With the concept of ‘OS of Education’ as a service, they provide customers with all the tools they need for success. Customers can be non-profit impact investors who want to improve local economies, education institutions who want to fill gaps in how they teach in a post-COVID learning environment, or corporations who want to provide the best training possible as education providers themselves or as employee development programs.”
Microsoft estimates that the next five years will see the creation of nearly 150 million new technology-oriented jobs, with most roles in software development. Holberton’s innovative offerings — including automated student work grading, collaborative environment for online and hybrid education plus a hands-on curriculum constantly updated to incorporate the latest advances in software tooling and languages — help its global customers fill a pipeline of highly-skilled software engineers.
About Redpoint eventures
Redpoint eventures is a venture capital firm investing in Latin American startups. The firm partners with visionary founders using technology to create new markets and solve big problems in existing ones. With an experienced team in Brazil and in close partnership with two Silicon Valley firms (e.ventures and Redpoint), the firm helps founders secure the capital, talent and growth to succeed further, faster.
Founded in 2012, Redpoint eventures invests across seed, early and growth stages. It manages over $300 million and has more than 40 companies in its portfolio, including Creditas, Gympass, Minuto Seguros, Olist, Pipefy, Rappi and Resultados Digitais. As part of its mission to support the Brazilian ecosystem, the firm co-founded Cubo (www.cubo.network), the second largest innovation hub in the world, based in Sao Paulo, where it’s headquartered. For more information, please visit www.rpev.com.br.
About Holberton
Founded in Silicon Valley in 2015, Holberton’s innovative and flexible delivery of the “OS of Education” provides a unique portfolio of tools, auto-graded tailored curricula and teaching methods to help its customers – education institutions, universities, corporations and franchisees – successfully train the next generation of digital talent at scale.
