From coding school to career acceleration platform, Italy’s Epicode strives for expansion with €10 million

Italy’s edtech player Epicode School has joined hands with the U.S. and Berlin-based Strive School to rebrand itself as Epicode and raise €10 million funding. The tie-up will create a career acceleration platform for the tech sector, with an initial focus in Europe.

The round was led by Matteo de Brabant (founder of Jakala), Lorenzo Lamberti Sagliano (tech investor) and saw the participation of tier-1 family offices, tech entrepreneurs and investors such as Enrico Drago (family office), Valerio Camerano (Algebris), Fabio Cannavale (Lastminute.com), Federico Leproux (Teamsystem), Niccolò Colussi, Matteo Lunelli (Cantine Ferrari and Altagamma), Gian Andrea Strekelj (founder of Venere.com), and Paolo Barberis (Nana Bianca).

Talking about how the company has geared up for the transformation, Ivan Ranza, CEO, Epicode said: “We want to accelerate the transition to a fully digital economy, creating a more sustainable and inclusive environment in the process. Epicode and Strive started by training new web developers and helping them find their first jobs. Now, our goal is to support tech professionals throughout their entire careers, not just at the start. The rebrand and the round are steps in our transition from being a coding school to becoming the main career acceleration platform in tech. Our ambitions are global, but step 1 is to establish Epicode as the leader in Europe.”

The Italian online coding school currently has over 1,000 students trained in 2021 and a growing network of over 600 hiring partner companies (including Fortune 500 and top tech companies such as EY, Deloitte, Accenture, Jakala, Capgemini, Almaviva, Kpmg, Cisco, Palo Alto Network, Engineering, Reply, Almaviva, and more).

The startup offers a new training model and six-month courses that are mastery-based, structured and personalised. All courses are online and come with a live, interactive component to maximise student engagement. 

The platform’s business model is rooted in an alignment of incentives between each party. Qualified students can decide to initially pay a deposit to enroll, and once they start working, they can finish paying for the tuition.