Creadev et al. in €14m second round for digiSchool

José Rojo
12 February 2016

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Venture capital house Creadev, investment holding Sepfi and BPI France have backed a €14m round for French e-learning platform digiSchool, allowing Turenne Capital Investissement and Alto Invest to exit.

The round comes as digiSchool claims to have broken its own audience records. In January 2016 alone, the business is understood to have recorded more than 8 million visits to its e-learning website and signed up more than 130,000 new members.

Targetting students in the 15-25 age range, digiSchool will use the funds to push annual web traffic in France up to 100 million visits in 2016.

In addition, the business is looking to strengthen its footing elsewhere in Europe: having already set up operations in Spain and the UK, digiSchool intends to fully launch its services in both countries by the end of 2016, generating 30 million visits and 500,000 new members in the process. Expansion to additional countries is foreseen for 2017.

The strategy will involve a boost to its workforce, which grew from 40 to 60 staff in 2015. The company plans to reach the 100-employee mark by the end of 2016 and double its current headcount figure by late 2017. As part of the changes, CCM Benchmark's Isabelle Weill and Netflix's Clément Cezard will join digiSchool's board of advisers.

According to unquote" data, the round is the first to involve Creadev in France since September 2015, when the VC led a €5m series-A for Paris-headquartered data management service Ysance.

Previous funding
The deal marks an exit for French VCs Turenne and Alto. The duo had been minority shareholders in the e-learning platform since backing a €3m capital increase in 2013.

Neither firm has disclosed the returns they have made through the sale, but French publication Capital Finance reported an IRR above the 20% mark.

Company
Created via the merger of Kreactive and Media Étudiant in 2011, digiSchool runs a free-of-charge online learning platform for students in the 15-25 age range.

The business claims to have recruited 6.5 million members since inception, equal to 4,500 a day. According to its figures, an average of eight million users browse the website on a monthly basis. Headquartered in Paris, the company currently employs a 60-strong workforce.

People
Creadev – Florent Thomann (director); Alexandre Neuvéglise (analyst).
Sepfi – Yves de La Villeguérin (chairperson).
digiSchool – Anthony Kuntz (co-founder); Thierry Debarnot (co-founder).

Advisers
Equity – Bird & Bird, David Malcoiffe, Lionel Berthelet (legal); Mobilis, François Communal (legal); PwC Advisory, Stéphane Salustro, Julien Sauvard (financial due diligence).
Company – Alpha Capital Partners, Marc Oiknine (corporate finance); Cabinet Dahan & Associés, Carole Dahan (legal).