Founded in 2007, Avantis Education Group (Avantis) delivers interactive and immersive education products to more than two million students in 200,000 institutions across more 90 countries worldwide. The business currently has 10,000 schools subscribing to its SaaS license.
Immersive education
The business provides proprietary headsets, software and curriculum-aligned content that makes it easy for schools to set-up and run virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) alongside traditional teaching methods. ClassVR is a complete system of hardware, software, content and teacher controls that immerses students in a wide variety of AR and VR experiences, sparking creativity and improving pupil engagement. It can enable students to engage and explore coral reefs and their intricate ecosystems and moments of historical significance.
Supporting an international expansion plan
In 2022, we backed the management team – consisting of CEO Huw Williams and Founder Nik Tuson – to enhance the company’s product suite and continue to expand internationally, driving significant growth in new market segments and territories.
Using our extensive network, Mark McCusker, former CEO of Texthelp – another EdTech company that LDC helped to grow globally – was introduced to Avantis, and joined the board as Non-Executive Director.
It’s been fantastic to see so many schools globally embrace the power of virtual reality and we’re excited to be working with LDC to support our next phase of growth. LDC’s sector experience from supporting leading ed-tech businesses like Texthelp was crucial when choosing a private equity partner to support our vision.”
Global expansion
Since entering the US in 2007 and opening its first US office in 2021, the business now serves 2,500 US schools and just over 1,200 school districts. As the business continues to grow its global footprint and strengthen its position in the US market, it is forecasting revenue and EBITDA growth of more than 50% in 2024. In 2023, Avantis generated £23m in revenue with EBITDA of £6.4m.
Avantis is targeting further US district-wide deals by expanding its range of educational experiences that are aligned with US curricula. For the 2023-24 school year, Avantis aligned more than 400 of its lessons to US State Standards in science, social studies and English Language Arts. The company is also looking to drive growth in EMEA and Asia, and will continue to invest in content development to increase revenue from software subscriptions.
It’s been a privilege to work with Huw and the wider team, and we look forward to supporting their ambitions as the business grows and positively impacts students across the world.”
Demand for VR in US schools spurs growth for Avantis
CEO of Avantis Huw Williams spoke to Times Enterprise Network about the business’ expansion across international markets including the US, where revenue is growing rapidly.
