The Spanish fintech StudentFinance, has closed an investment round of 1,150,000 euros, to consolidate in our country, the educational financing system based on the “Shared Income Agreement”. The company will use this capital to build a technological data infrastructure that provides its partner schools with a platform to offer this new financing model. Which, according to its spokesmen, will allow them to support more than 500 students in 2020.
StudentFinance wants to reduce, thanks to this type of financing, the digital talent gap that exists in the Spanish labor market. In fact, according to the company, there are more than 700,000 unfilled job vacancies of this type in Europe, which is why they consider it essential to promote education in technological skills, such as software engineers, data analysts or cybersecurity experts.
The round has been led by the European venture capital fund, Seedcamp, which has invested in Revolut and TransferWise, two of the most important international fintech, and the Mustard Seed Maze fund, focused on companies with a high social impact component . Likewise, well-known European entrepreneurs have participated, such as the founder and CEO of Farfetch, José Neves; the founder and CEO of Trivago, Rolf Schrömgenst; the founder and CEO of Feedzai, Nuno Sebastiao and the founders and co-CEOs of Jobandtalent, Felipe Navío and Juan Urdiales.
ISA model
StudentFinance, which started in September this year in our country, replicates the ISA (Income Share Agreements) financing model, very popular in the United States, whereby the startup assumes the cost of the technological studies chosen by each student and Once they have work and earn above a minimum threshold, they begin to pay a fixed percentage of their income for a predetermined period of time.
In this way, the company is not only a fintech startup but also enters the Edtech sector as it collaborates with schools, bootcamps, intensive courses in which students acquire different digital skills in order to meet the demands of the labor market, and universities that want to offer their students this form of payment, where they focus on the success of their students.
Mariano Kostelec, co-founder and CEO of StudentFinance states that “we are proud and very excited to have ensured a great involvement of potential investors who believe in our mission of making education affordable and accessible. A system that is based on obtaining results It is an honor to work with them to expand the revenue sharing agreements throughout Europe”.
Also published on Medium.