Investment firm invest £4.5m to turbocharge opportunities for women

Code First Girls, a female-founded, fast-growing UK business that supports women into coding education and employment for free, announced today (7 September) a £4.5m Series A fundraise from female angel investors and a leading investment firm to accelerate the company’s growth and close the gender gap in the traditionally male-dominated tech industry.

The funding will enable the company to reach an ambitious new target of providing one million opportunities to women to learn how to code and secure a job in tech over the next five years.

Active Partners, the lead investor, boasts an impressive portfolio of well-known brands including Leon, Rapha, Soho House, and Honest Burgers. The funding round has also attracted support from CEOs and COOs of leading companies like Bloom & Wild.

There is a stark gender gap in the tech industry, with women making up just 21 per cent of the UK’s tech industry and black women making up less than 3 per cent. The UK’s tech job market is projected to be worth £30bn by 2025 six times larger than it is now and a diverse talent pipeline will need to be put in place in order to unlock this value.

As part of its ambition to provide one million opportunities to women, alongside free online courses at every stage of the pipeline, Code First Girls plans to put over 26,000 women through the ‘CFGdegree’ and place them into tech roles over the next five years. Given an average starting salary in tech, this equates to over £1 billion in economic opportunities for women entering into the tech industry.

Founded by Alice Bentinck MBE and Matthew Clifford MBE, who also co-founded startup accelerator Entrepreneur First, Code First Girls has been transitioning in recent years from a social enterprise to a rapidly accelerating profit-making business. Anna has driven this repositioning, and now has Founder status.

Anna Brailsford, CEO of Code First Girls, said: “At Code First Girls, our mission is to close the serious, long-term gender gap in the tech industry by giving women the opportunity to learn to code and get jobs in tech, at no cost to them. We’re growing at an incredibly fast pace, with businesses, government and universities across the country getting on board because they recognise we’ve found a model that works.

“We’re proud of both our social and commercial impact, having already taught 80,000 women to code for free, linking talent with jobs, and having recently 10xed our revenue and user base. Our next goal is to become the world’s first EdTech unicorn dedicated to women.

“This funding round is a vote of confidence from major figures in the tech industry, who see our pioneering model as a solution to the tech gender gap. We’ll use this investment to provide one million opportunities for women to learn to code for free and enter the industry, driving a huge £1bn in economic opportunities for women and a boost for the entire sector.”

Claire Davenport, CEO of notonthehighstreet.com, said: “I believe Code First Girls is providing a way of rebalancing that inequality, as well as boosting social mobility and giving women from every background the chance to get into a brilliant career. By opening up routes into the tech industry for women, whatever stage they are at in life, we are not only supporting women into rewarding roles but providing a huge injection of talent for the industry itself.”

Michelle Kennedy, CEO and founder of Peanut, said: “Investing in Code First Girls was one of the easiest investments I’ve made to date. Anna is an extremely impressive CEO who has a clear vision not only to train more women in order to secure roles in engineering and tech more broadly, but as importantly, to create a funnel to meet the demand from employers for world class talent.”

By Mark Adair – Correspondent, Bdaily