Veative Labs and Dev Clever Advancement toward Consolidation

Veative Labs Pte Ltd (Singapore) and Dev Clever Holdings PLC (LSE:DEV) are pleased to announce a proposed consolidation of business to greatly enhance the introduction of a transformational program of career-focused learning to be offered to the global schools market. Veative’s wholly-owned Indian subsidiary and IP assets are being acquired by Dev Clever Holdings PLC, a London Stock Exchange publically-traded company, based in Tamworth, UK. To learn more about this deal, please refer to the official London Stock Exchange posting.

Having met in 2019, after both companies took on collaborative roles with Lenovo, the respective CEOs found synergy in partnering together to promote each other’s products, in various regions. This initial working relationship then turned into a development role for Veative’s office in India, working on Dev Clever’s Launch Your Career(LYC) platform. This naturally led to a realization that there was more here than a simple working relationship, especially when a 5-year partnership with NISA, the National Independent Schools Association (India), was announced in December of 2020. As the relationship solidified it became apparent that a consolidation of entities was the next, natural step for the CEOs who shared very similar thoughts of the future of EdTech.

By combining the solid framework of LYC with the deep learning of Veative modules, Chris Jeffries and Ankur Aggarwal have a shared vision to help learners find the career they are best suited for, to better understand what that entails and what the growth potential is, and to begin on a learning path toward that goal. That student would then be empowered by understanding what their personality type is and why that career might be a good fit, would get to know where they can further their studies and what the earning potential is, and would accumulate a record of the learning elements they have embarked upon to help them reach their goal. This learning record can be shared with both an institution of higher learning and prospective employer, tilting the scale in their favour by demonstrably displaying their journey to that career of choice.

Aggarwal, co-founder of Veative Labs in 2016, has grown that company into a global educational contents provider for immersive learning (AR, VR, MR) which employs in excess of 100 staff members who have put over 1 million man-hours into the development of the world’s largest library of curriculum-aligned, interactive, STEM modules for education. In addition, the company also offers an extensive English language learning series, virtual tours, industrial training (oil and gas, medical, and so on), as well as offering professional services to enterprise clients around the world. Apart from the content that Veative has created in-house, the data-driven analytics platform developed by Veative is also bolstered by 3rd party content from some creative partners in the immersive learning sector. The content-laden platform created by Veative is uniquely positioned as the go-to platform for educators worldwide.

Led by Jeffries, Dev Clever has brought about remarkable careers engagement to learners within the UK. In feedback from participating schools, there has been an impressive 147% growth in students feeling more engaged and informed after using the Launch Your Career platform. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with 94% of learners saying the platform was helpful in finding the right career, 89% feeling more informed about careers, and 96% of students saying they loved the platform.

This initiative sees Dev Clever’s LYC platform delivering quality career guidance in line with dedicated benchmarks. Focusing on verified testing, profiling, and custom data, Dev Clever will replicate the success it has had in the UK and US to raise the bar across all NISA-affiliated schools that it welcomes onto the platform. NISA, is an association of over 70,000 schools attended by approximately 13 million students. In the previously-signed agreement, NISA will recommend Launch Your Career as the platform-of-choice to its schools for career guidance, backed by Veative’s innovative immersive learning content, to allow students to better understand and prepare for future careers.

As noted by Veative CEO, Ankur Aggarwal,

“We are both excited and humbled to be working with Dev Clever, a market leader in career development, and NISA, a massively influential body working hard to affect real, lasting change in the lives of Indian youths. Our contribution to this endeavour is to add a unique immersive learning element to enable a true understanding of what some career choices entail, plus some real learning in that area of interest. In these trying times, the ability for educators to pivot with the changing needs of both in-person and remote learners, is paramount. Such a disruptive environment creates both challenges and opportunities for EdTech companies to rise to the occasion. Delivering online education at scale at significantly lower costs, coupled with increased internet and smartphone penetration and a large untapped consumer base, makes this a truly wonderful time to be involved in education in India.”

Chris Jeffries, Dev Clever CEO, went on to add,

“This is a significant milestone and material opportunity to support the career development of millions of young people in India. We are delighted to be working directly in partnership with NISA, the benchmark authority and voice of the expeditiously expanding budget private education sector in India, and Veative, the market-leading provider of online and immersive curriculum-aligned learning content. Together, we are able to deliver this solution at such a scale that it has a real possibility to change the way young people learn and become prepared for the world of work in their future. The Indian EdTech sector is predicted to grow from $2.8B in 2020 to $10B by 2025 and this partnership enables the company to enter an exciting geography at scale with a strong proposition, a direct route to market and the opportunity to secure a sizable part of this rapidly growing sector.”

Upon completion of the transaction, Ankur Aggarwal, will join Dev Clever’s board and executive team.

In a joint statement, both leaders explained that, “India is a key market for us, but this type of career guidance and development does not stop at those borders. There is a growing need globally for learning matched with future careers and our LYC platform is scalable and localizable. Veative has reached 25 markets already, in a number of languages, and we plan to use that growth as a launch into many more regions.”

The expansive service will provide skills, guidance, and experience from all angles to maximize a learner’s potential and prepare them for college and career readiness. Students will benefit from virtual work experiences, career networking, as well as college and course recommendations. Moreover, students can also undertake valuable learning modules to build aspects of their character, as well as their personal knowledge base, by accessing Veative’s curriculum-aligned, interactive, educational offering, bringing learning to life. When a young learner has an opportunity to see what they like, or don’t like, about a certain career, they gain the ability to form a more holistic understanding of careers they may pursue in the future.