The Trill Impact Fund (the Fund) has acquired a majority stake in the leading digital training company karriere tutor GmbH (the Company). Since its founding in 2015, karriere tutor has grown to become a leading provider of state-subsidised training for jobseekers. The Company has helped over 15,000 people acquire relevant job skills. Digitalisation and Industry 4.0 are the focus of karriere tutor’s digital learning offering, as these trends will shape the requirements of tomorrow’s job market and be crucial to successful reintegration into the labour market. Trill Impact intends to further expand the company’s digital education offering alongside the Company’s founder, Oliver Herbig.
karriere tutor was launched by Oliver Herbig in 2015 and has developed into the leading digital provider of state-subsidized professional training in Germany. Today, karriere tutor employs around 150 people and offers 800 certified online courses with professional development content. The courses focus on what Trill Impact believes are essential skills required in the 21st century labour market, particularly digitalisation and Industry 4.0. In Germany’s current labour market, which is characterized by a shortage of skilled workers and continuous changes in professional profiles, karriere tutor provides graduates a good opportunity to strengthen their position and specialize their skillset. With a combination of digital courses, individual online support and intensive career counselling, the Company has already trained 15,000 graduates, supporting their reintegration into skilled jobs, which correlates with Trill Impact’s view that access to education is the basis for social cohesion. karriere tutor has also recently started offering digital courses to improve the integration of refugees in Germany.
Together with Oliver Herbig and karriere tutor’s experienced management team and motivated workforce, Trill Impact plans to further expand the digital course offering for government-funded professional training. In Trill Impact’s view, another strategic pillar of the Company is to improve training accessibility, thereby making the courses accessible to even more graduates. Trill Impact will actively support further professionalization of the organization, including increasing brand awareness among prospective graduates, and intends to expand digital sales and marketing expertise and ramping up automatization of business processes. Oliver Herbig will maintain a significant shareholding and continue in his position alongside his co-CEO, Thomas Rekittke.
Oliver Herbig, founder and co-CEO of karriere tutor, is pleased to partner with Trill Impact to drive further growth,
"Education for a better world – that is karriere tutor’s mission. With Trill Impact, we have found an owner who shares this vision, our values and entrepreneurial spirit. Together we want to grow the range of courses, expand into adjacent educational offerings and offer future-proof professional education.”
Kristian Klosterkemper, partner at Trill Impact, is looking forward to supporting karriere tutor as a growth partner:
"karriere tutor’s educational offering, in our view, addresses urgent societal challenges such as the skills shortage and the ‘digital skills gap’ in Germany. We see strong growth potential in the market for education and professional training. We are pleased that another company in the education sector has been added to the Fund’s portfolio to promote access to education and equal opportunities."
Trill Impact closed its EUR 900 million mid-market impact buyout fund in Q3 2021, making it one of the largest first-time funds raised during the COVID-19 pandemic by an independent private investment firm. karriere tutor is the fifth platform investment and the fourteenth private equity transaction made by the Fund. Earlier Fund investments include Nordomatic (system integrator for building automation and energy efficiency in buildings), ILT (EdTech provider for schools), Meona and iSolutions (merged into clinical software group, Mesalvo), and ID North and Arctic Group (merged into the cybersecurity platform, European ID Security’). The Fund invests to support and develop mid-sized companies in Northern Europe that address social and environmental challenges in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
This material has been prepared for informational purposes only. All statements and opinions included
herein are subject to change as economic and market conditions dictate. There can be no assurance that any views, outlooks, or forward-looking statements will come to pass.
