Antler Investor Memo Series: Enrola makes it easier for students to find the courses they want to study

Early stage investment company Antler Australia recently backed a new cohort of startups as part of its ongoing program to build great local tech companies.

Startup Daily is sharing the details of each venture in the “Antler Investor Memos” series, which is designed to give you a quick, sharp understanding of the startups and people involved, with many seeking follow up capital following Antler’s initial pre-seed investment.

Company: Enrola

Founded: November 2023
Stage: Pre-seed
Founders: Jo Thomas (CEO) and Yvette Quinby (CTO)
Current investors: Antler
Currently raising: Yes

The Business

Global expenditure on education is set to hit US$10 trillion by 2030, according to the World Economic Forum. While a growing market, it’s plagued by inefficiencies that hinder both students and education providers.

Students often struggle with researching and selecting the right courses and in many cases, there’s no way of knowing if they’re good quality, delivered conveniently, or their total cost.

Meanwhile, providers face administrative burdens and challenges in attracting qualified candidates. These issues lead to suboptimal enrolment rates, discouraged students, and wasted resources.

In a market-first, Enrola removes that friction by asking the right questions and then finding the perfect match for that student.

Starting with the $16bn Australian vocational sector, Enrola is connecting students with high-quality educational opportunities and empowering providers to focus on delivering exceptional education.

For students, Enrola simplifies the journey through a user-friendly platform that provides tailored and high-quality course recommendations, both AI and human guidance, and a seamless application process through advanced algorithms and personalised needs analysis. Enrola ensures students find the right courses faster and with greater confidence.

For education providers, Enrola delivers not just leads but ready-to-enrol students, significantly improving conversion rates. Enrola works seamlessly with existing academic systems, reducing administrative overhead and enabling these institutions to focus on delivering quality education.

Antler investment thesis

The company is founded by an exceptionally strong team. Cofounder and CEO Jo Thomas has deep domain expertise in the education and comparison platform sectors, coming from her positions as CEO at the Australian Institute of Business, and COO at Compare the Market and iSelect.

Fellow cofounder and CTO Yvette Quinby has the technical expertise to build the platform with a long-term career as a software engineer in banking and tech. Their unique insights and passion for the problem space has driven them to leverage technology to create a more efficient, student-centric platform that simplifies that decision process.

They have shown sophisticated tactical knowledge that will help build the platform and have shown promising early traction and commercial trajectory.

Through our DD process, the Enrola team consistently tested its market, product and model and adjusted accordingly. We believe they have the grit and drive to build a very valuable business.

Traction/milestones

With unique insights into both the comparison and education sectors, coupled with first-mover advantage and exclusive partnerships, Enrola has positioned itself as a market leader.

To find product-market fit, Yvette and Jo collectively spoke to over 400 students in the last four months and are confident that we’re building a solution to solve the indecision and fear that comes from deciding what course to study – and with who.

Enrola’s GTM was swift, launching just two months after the Antler investment with their MVP Course Advisor. To date, they have had nearly 2000 students use the Course Advisor, and their enrolments are growing by 20% month-on-month. With more than 80 courses already on the platform, Enrola curates the panel of providers to ensure a quality student experience.

Since their launch, Enrola has already begun generating revenue and they expect to be at a $1 million annual revenue within 12 months and $10m by 2027. To assist with this growth, they are recruiting two technical hires who will be focused on building out the platform and honing the UX for students.

Going forward, Jo highlights that their “initial focus has been on career changers but we see massive opportunity in the school leaver segment. The dynamics that we witness here in Australia are also common internationally and so we have grand ambitions to scale globally.”

In the near term, Enrola is focused on building the team and platform so they can hone their delivery of a streamlined enrolment experience for students and support their education partners to deliver top-notch education to as many people as possible.

Latest funding

Pre-Seed from Antler

Use of Funds

Antler’s initial investment provided Enrola with the capital to launch quickly while building out a completely in-house developed platform. In turn, their quick GTM and crowd-sourced feedback allowed them to find their target audience and begin onboarding them.

This has also funded Enrola’s UX refinement and conversion testing in MVP and Beta, which their new hires will continue to build out while they approach their pre-seed close.

The founders say

“Antler has provided priceless guidance both before and after investing. The strong focus on validating the problem before building anything was key in us achieving PMF quickly”, says Jo.

“As first-time founders, it’s also been invaluable to have the Antler team provide guidance on fundraising and strategy as well as feeling like we’re part of a community. The introductions to the wider Antler network and the ongoing support and network have been instrumental in our growth to date.

“The education sector is riddled with challenges such as complex course selection, opaque financial arrangements, and cumbersome administrative processes. Enrola exists to help more people access life and career-changing education by addressing significant inefficiencies that hinder both students and education providers.

“We’re hugely ambitious about the potential for Enrola to scale quickly and essentially invent a new category here in the education sector.”