PRESS RELEASE
tutor2u, the leading digital education
publisher for Business, Economics & the Humanities, has agreed to take a
substantially increased stake in zondle, the fast-growing specialist in games-based
learning.
zondle
is managed by Wayne Holmes, Doug Lapsley and Ben Barton (ex Pearson, Granada
Learning, Rising Stars & Harcourt) and has seen huge growth in users and
traffic (doubling both since January 2013) and has begun generating revenues in
the UK.
Commenting
on tutor2u's investment, Jim Riley (Managing Director, tutor2u) said:
"We
are delighted to take advantage of the opportunity to invest further in zondle
which has developed hugely since we first took a stake in the business.
zondle's innovative games-based learning platform has already enabled tutor2u
to broaden our offer to teachers and students in our core subjects and we are
now rolling this out across a wider range of curriculum areas."
“zondle’s
platform is a core part of our investment in teaching & learning resources
that can be accessed and delivered via mobile devices. We have also
commissioned zondle to develop a new student portal within the tutor2u
website”.
"The
UK educational system faces significant and disruptive curriculum change over
the next two years and our teacher and student community will look to partners
like zondle and tutor2u to support them as the changes take effect.. Many of
the larger print-based educational publishers are still struggling to meet the
needs of digital education and the combination of tutor2u and zondle will
enable us to continue to grow rapidly through outstanding innovation, quality
and value".
“As
the tutor2u and zondle teams have worked closely together over the last 18
months, it has become clear that we share the same core values. Both tutor2u
and zondle love education – wherever it takes place – and we are both committed
to working directly with teachers, students, parents and other educational
stakeholders to improve the quality of teaching and learning.”
Ben
Barton from zondle commented:
“We
are so pleased that our partner, tutor2u, has agreed to significantly increase
its investment in zondle at this time. tutor2u are clearly market leading in
developing content that teachers actually use to support their students and the
growing tutor2u team understands technology and the new landscape of education
which will help zondle build on its early successes.”
“The
closer ties with tutor2u and the increased investment mean a step change for
both our organizations as we take on the more established resource providers in
the UK and abroad and continue to deliver fantastic support for teachers and
students.”
Notes
for Editors:
tutor2u
was founded in 2002 by twin brothers Jim and Geoff Riley. Jim was formerly with
PricewaterhouseCoopers and Thomson Travel Group plc. Geoff is currently Head of
Teaching & Learning at Eton College.
tutor2u
(www.tutor2u.net) is now one of the world's
most popular e-learning brands, serving over 30 million unique website users each year. tutor2u provides a wide
range of free and subscription-based learning materials to over 90% of the UK's secondary and tertiary
educational institutions, and exports to schools and colleges in over 130
countries. tutor2u also provides exam coaching workshops to over 20,000
students each year and has developed a highly popular CPD programme.
In
2012, tutor2u was accepted onto the BIS-funded GrowthAccelerator scheme. As a
result of the growth strategy developed through this process, tutor2u made
three significant appointments in October 2012: Michelle Stephenson (Head of
Events & New Projects); Graham Prior (Head of Teaching, Learning &
Online Community); Jon Clark (Head of Innovation).
zondle
(www.zondle.com) is a games-based learning platform
that operates in over 100 countries and over 40 languages. More than 8m
questions are answered on zondle every month and there are almost 300,000 users
of zondle worldwide. zondle launched it’s first paid-for product zondle SPAG!
to support the new Grammar Punctuation and Spelling Test which had a glowing
reception from teachers in England and Wales.
Ben
Barton has worked in education for 20 years including time at Pearson, Granada
Learning and Harcourt. Ben founded Rising Stars in 2002 and sold his stake in
that business in 2012.
For more
information please contact:
Ben Barton
(07590 692595) or ben.barton@zondle.com
Jim Riley
(07769 675599) or jimriley@tutor2u.net
