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We got an exclusive look at the 11-slide pitch deck Code First Girls, a startup teaching women to code, used to raise $5.1 million
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- Code First Girls, an organization teaching women to code for free, has just raised $5.1 million.
- The fresh funds represent its shift from a social enterprise to a VC-backed startup.
- We got an exclusive look at the 11-slide pitch deck it used to secure its first round of investment.
An organization designed to get more women into tech, created by the founders of accelerator Entrepreneur First, just raised £4.5 million (around $5.1 million).
Code First Girls, which runs free courses to teach women to code, was set up in 2012 as a social enterprise. Alice Bentinck MBE and Matthew Clifford MBE, the pair behind Entrepreneur First, were frustrated with the lack of female talent in the accelerator’s pipeline and set about closing the gender gap.
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Women make up 26% of the UK’s tech industry – Code First Girls’ original target market – despite being 50% of the labour market, according to government-funded startup organization Tech Nation.
Under the leadership of Anna Brailsford, the organization has pivoted into a profit-driven startup and is now set on becoming one of the first edtech unicorns dedicated to women.
Code First Girls offers three courses to women, with each growing in length and specificity. It claims to have helped 80,000 women learn to code for free and is working its way up to a milestone of 1 million.
While one program is open to everyone, the ‘Classroom’ course is hyper-targeted to regions across the UK and Europe where Code First Girls has identified a skills shortage. During this eight-week program, the company collects various data points on coders as they learn about sprints, SQL, and web development, along with others, and matches up potential candidates with job opportunities in their area. They can then apply to the 14-week ‘Code First Girls degree’, which has been designed with employers to fill specific job roles.
The fresh cash will help put 26,000 women through the long course and be placed in tech roles over the next five years.
While free for women learning to code, the company opens up its network via a subscription service to companies looking to fill roles and reach gender parity in their workforce, CEO Brailsford told Insider.
“Gender parity is important because we’re creating products, we’re creating systems that represent society, if you exclude women from that narrative, then we’re excluding women from the future,” Brailsford said.
“It’s very important that women come to the table, that they get involved in the creation of those things and we educate women as to how important that is.”
Brailsford wants to help get women into positions where they can be future CTOs, echoing Code First Girls’ founders’ desire for more women entrepreneurs with technical skills.
“It’s come full circle,” Brailsford said. “I plan to fulfill that promise through what we’ve created here. The lion’s share of our work is obviously centered around getting women into an organization. It’s a very obvious play. It’s a subscription, it makes sense.
“Where it’s been a little bit trickier is how we support them then into entrepreneurship. I have plans as to how to make that original dream a reality.”
The round was led by Soho House-backers Active Partners. It is the company’s first fundraise, but Brailsford opted for calling it Series A over Seed due to where the company is at in its journey.
A range of angels also joined the round, including Not On The High Street CEO Claire Davenport and Michelle Kennedy, CEO and founder of female health-oriented social network Peanut.
The cash will be used to double down on its course content and invest in machine learning for intelligent matching of candidates and available jobs. Code First Girls will also double its current team of 26 over the next year.
Check out the 11-slide redacted pitch deck below.
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