Consortium inspired by app’s power to engage community
AWelsh app that offers a direct line of communication between teachers and parents has received a £200,000 investment from some of Wales’ top entrepreneurs.
InspireWales will also provide sales and marketing support for Schoop, a multilingual app for schools, nurseries, charities, sports clubs and community services to communicate and engage.
The InspireWales investment consortium is made up of 20 of Wales’ top entrepreneurs, including Hayley Parsons, founder of GoCompare, and Simon Powell, founder and CEO of software development company Comtec. It aims to support exciting and ambitious start-up, early-stage and growth businesses.
Schoop was founded by Paul Smith, who was frustrated by the lack of communication from his children’s school and devised the idea of the Schoop app, which helps teachers engage families in the education of their children and helps schools save money by providing all school communications, calendars and forms in one simple app.
As part of the investment, InspireWales member and managing director of TVS Education Alan Whiteley will take a place on the board of Schoop.
Schoop founder Paul Smith, said: “We have already had great reaction to Schoop and we are an integral part of many schools’ relationship with parents, but the investment from InspireWales means that we can take the business to the next level. We plan to double our customer base in the next 18 months.
“The fact that investors of such high calibre are also investing in Schoop gives us the confidence to escalate our growth plans.
“Education is still our main customer, but the platform can also help many other private sector clients, large organisations who want to communicate with their clients or customers.
“We are already working with Arriva Trains Wales and Cardiff Bus. We are looking forward to seeing what the future holds with the mentoring and support of InspireWales.”
Schoop director Chris Hamblin has global ambitions for the Cardiff-based company and says it is in talks with schools in Dubai and the Cayman Islands – and that the app is already is use in Thailand.
There are currently 300 UK schools using Schoop, but with over 37,000 state schools and 2,600 independent schools in the country, there is plenty of room for growth.
As it stands today, the app is multilingual and allows for auto-translation in 41 languages. Alerts can be sent to all schools, classes, groups, sub-groups and private groups and individual messaging is available. Scheduled daily, weekly and monthly alerts, news articles with unlimited characters and the ability to embed video and images in the app are also options.
Forms can be created for school trip permission and absences, as well as surveys and questionnaires for parental feedback.
The app’s interactive calendar now allows for more detail for the end-user with reminder alerts. Schools can add their logos for branding and can even integrate social media platforms such as Twitter. The app enables schools to empower multiple staff members, reducing the administrative burden and saving time and money.
InspireWales fund manager James Henderson explained why Schoop was an attractive proposition for the consortium: “Schoop is an established and profitable business with a solid customer base and a very interesting product.
“It is already solving some clear problems for schools around speed of communication and response rate, and bringing parents much closer to the education process.”
Mr Henderson added: “A lot of InspireWales members are from the tech arena and were able to identify some key areas where Schoop could really differentiate itself and solve a lot more communication and community issues on one simple platform.”
This is the company’s second investment. A funeral price comparison site secured £250,000 as the first investment from InspireWales.
About the Funeral, also based in Cardiff, is understood to have received the equity investment from InspireWales in return for an ownership stake of around a third.