Tech firm that’s code for success
THE founder and CEO of one of the most recent companies in Greater Manchester to go public has revealed plans to double the number of staff and expand further across the UK.
Chris Hill established Northcoders in 2015 after previously working at the likes of Sky, Zen Exchange and CrowdMission.
His business floated on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market in July this year, raising £3.5m in the process and being valued at more than £12m.
The software coding training programmes provider recently celebrated the graduation of its 900th course member and plans are in place to open new hubs in Birmingham, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield in the coming months.
The company is also expected to double its headcount by this time next year and it has already hired about 20 people in the last couple of months.
Northcoders’ coding school, which also has a base in Leeds, offers courses for absolute beginners, hobbyists and junior software developers to help them kick-start and advance their careers.
Another part of the business involves its team of specialist software developers helping businesses solve education problems with technical solutions.
In an exclusive interview with BusinessLive, Mr Hill reveals all about why going public was the right move, what the £3.5m is being invested in, his plans for expansion and job creation as well as the impact the Covid-19 pandemic had on the business.
“The actual floatation and investment process was very time consuming and difficult, just because it was so new to raise money in that way”, Mr Hill said.
“But since then, while there are some other aspects to our business such as releasing public-facing accounts and liaising with people around trading updates and so on, actually the business is running exactly how it was before.
“That’s one of the reasons why we chose to become a plc because we are 100 per cent in control of how we run our company.
“Of course, if things were to go wrong or if you were to make bad decisions there will be people who would be disappointed but there is not anyone who is able to literally change the way that you control the company.”
He added: “We’re not developing a product which is not going to see release for three years and not see monetisation for five. We generate cash from individuals and businesses and now from the Government with apprenticeships so we have been able to borrow money for things like expansion, investment and marketing.
“Some of the deals we looked at on the private market, we just did not like the structure of those deals and ultimately being on AIM means we can raise money very quickly. There is the potential to acquire other small companies, such as founder-led businesses, which are thinking about becoming part of the Northcoders group.
“If we were to come across a good opportunity like that, not that there is anything planned at this particular time, we would in theory be able to raise some money very quickly if it was a good thing for the business”. Northcoders’ float on AIM in July netted the business a £3.5m pay day which Mr Hill has already earmarked for a range of uses. “It’s going towards investing in our business and building out our geographical hubs in many of the different UK northern cities”, he said. “We raised money so we’ve got working capital to support Student Finance to make the course more accessible for people.
“We are very keen on diversity and inclusion and being able to really do as much as we possibly can and we have been able to work with companies such as PrettyLittleThing on apprenticeship programmes because we are able to get people into fantastic careers that this is inaccessible for.”
Mr Hill also talked up the importance of the company being headquartered in Manchester, with the city’s tech industry booming in recent years.
He said: “It’s a fantastic city and it’s 100pc a big tech hub. Will it overtake London? Who knows but we will keep trying!
“We have seen lots of companies coming to the North who may have recently been offshoring their software engineering work and seen Manchester as a fantastic opportunity to grow their teams so that’s also a great opportunity for us and also for the people of Manchester.”
In its first update to the markets after becoming a public company, Northcoders reported a “strong performance” for the first eight months of its financial year
Since then, Mr Hill confirmed the demand for its services has been “exponential” and that it has “just grown and grown”.
He added: “We just can’t have enough opportunities for people to fulfil the roles for development work within companies.
“We are also looking at going into other technical areas which our clients are requesting for us to do such as data, potentially cyber security and infrastructure.
“We can certainly be thankful that we operate in such a growing market and the demand is just compounding further and further and that’s what we are seeing.”
Like every business around the world, Northcoders was also affected by the pandemic, falling to a loss for the first time in its history in 2020. However, Mr Hill said that a slight change in direction has helped the company recover.
He said: “We made a decision to pivot our model as well because know one knew what was going on during the first lockdown.
“We had been focused on big in-person campuses but we now have a hybrid model where people can be completely flexible where you could have a tutor in Leeds, a learner in Manchester and someone studying at home in London.”
Manchester is a fantastic city and it’s 100pc a big tech hub. Northcoders CEO Chris Hill