StudentFinance
Career mobility platform offering income-share financing for upskilling.
Founded
2019Career mobility platform offering income-share financing for upskilling.
StudentFinance operates a differentiated income-share financing model focused on European markets, particularly Spain, Portugal, and the UK. The company uses AI-powered skills forecasting to select high-quality education programs and predict in-demand career paths.
Key advantages include its early-mover position in European ISA markets, strong education partnerships with leading bootcamps, EFSI guarantee backing through the European Investment Fund, and a founding team with prior success from Uniplaces. The company has raised approximately €45M in total funding across pre-seed, seed, and Series A rounds.
Source: techcrunch.com
StudentFinance (legal name: Career Advance Finance Limited) is a UK-registered company (number 12790122) with FCA authorisation (Firm Reference Number 957719). Founded in Madrid in 2019 by the team behind Uniplaces, the company operates in Spain, Portugal, and the UK.
The company has raised three funding rounds: a €1.15M pre-seed led by Seedcamp and Mustard Seed Maze in November 2019; a $5.3M seed co-led by Giant Ventures and Armilar in May 2021; and a €39M Series A led by Iberis Capital with debt from SmartLenders Asset Management in February 2023. Notable angel investors include Monzo founder Tom Blomfield, former UK MP Ed Vaizey, and founders from Farfetch, Trivago, Feedzai, and Bolt.
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StudentFinance's flagship product is the Shared Income Agreement (SIA), a financing mechanism that allows learners to upskill into high-demand technology sectors without upfront tuition costs.
The SIA terms include 48 repayments at 12% income share with a maximum repayment cap. Repayment is triggered only when the learner's salary exceeds a defined threshold; otherwise it remains deferred. No payment is required while studying. Representative example: £10,000 financed across 59 months at 10.17% APR, total repayable £15,000. Eligible tracks include Software Engineering, Data Science, UX/UI Design, and Cybersecurity through partners such as Ironhack, CodeOp Tech, and Code Institute.
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