Investment Notes: Enrola
Why AfterWork Ventures invested in Enrola - the online education comparison platform eliminating decision paralysis for prospective students
Vocational Education and Training (VET) refer to qualifications via short courses that give accreditations to work in specific jobs, like aged care or disability assistance. And they are booming, with more providers and course options than ever before. But with choice comes confusion. First, it’s challenging knowing what to study and if the time commitments, costs and workplace requirements are feasible. Then, there’s the challenge of knowing what outcomes and prospects the course will unlock, and over what time horizon. This is particularly complicated amidst the wave of new options from new providers. Quality is hard to determine, further shrouding this high-stakes decision in complexity and anxiety.
Enrola helps budding students find the right high-quality course, with outcomes that match their personal goals, on a timeline that works for them. The market is large - with 4.5 million students in Australia enrolling in vocational education courses each year1. They’re a mix of school leavers (30%) and career changers (70%) and need help navigating the overwhelming 2,133 options out there. Enrola’s tech solution delivers the right qualification recommendations (based on goals, prior experience and outcomes) and the right provider recommendation (based on lifestyle requirements, preferred mode of study). On top of this, it also provides personalised support to give students confidence to commit to the enrolment. Enrola helps students find quality options both within this crowded space and outside this concentration, better suited to their needs2.
Not only are Enrola solving a problem for students, they’re helping the 5,000 Australian vocational providers too3. With more competitors than ever, Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) need efficient and cost-effective student recruitment methods; which Enrola provides.
AfterWork are excited to join Enrola on their journey to make further education enrolments simple. We jumped at the opportunity to lead their pre-seed round, alongside Skalata Ventures, Antler and strategic angels
What we loved about the opportunity
Building the future workforce of Australia
There’s no two ways about it, we have a shortage of VET-qualified workers in Australia. In fact, the government forecasts that in the next 10 years, 1 in 3 new jobs will require Cert II - IV as the primary pathway4. Government funding for private Vocational Education and Training is a priority, with significant funds flowing to the sector. In fact, in 2023, there were 421k funded student placements at private RTOs5. Yet macro level incentives can only go so far; Enrola is providing much needed liquidity to the market, matching prospective students with specific courses and providers.
From the perspective of the providers, Enrola is arriving at the exact right time. Recent policy decisions have restricted international student numbers significantly, who previously comprised 11% of Cert III and IV enrolments at Private RTOs6. The proposed caps will see Private VET Providers numbers reduced by 54%7. Enrola is able to offset this for providers by helping source a greater portion of domestic students.
“You were able to pick the right course for me, I couldn't have decided myself. That has helped me a lot and I can't wait to start" Amanda, Student
Formidable team with the right experience
CEO and founder, Jo Thomas, has extensive experience in both higher education and VC and PE backed marketplace models. In previous roles, she was the COO and CEO of the Australian Institute of Business and also held roles with well known aggregators, including as COO of ComparetheMarket and Operations Director at iSelect. Jo’s credibility in the education sector has translated into partnerships; having secured arrangements with prominent institutions in their first four months of operation. Yvette Quinby is Enrola’s CTO and co-founder, and brings profound global experience as a software engineer. Her areas of expertise include systems integration, payments and scalability, having engineered platforms that managed billions in annual transactions and scaled them globally. Together, the team has the credibility and expertise to build a scalable, tech solution to a growing problem.
The team consistently deliver a lot on a little
Enrola launched in January 2024, after emerging from the Antler accelerator program and has consistently demonstrated tenacity, resourcefulness and a shrewd ability to achieve outsized impact. The team has shown they know where to allocate capital in ways that drive results and build momentum. This is particularly impressive in a marketplace context; where the chicken-egg issue of scaling both supply and demand simultaneously is a famously thorny task. On the supply side, Enrola has partnered with 12 RTO providers across Community Services, Automotive, Business, Health, Fitness and Pharmacy. On the demand side, targeted and data led marketing experiments have already resulted in the placement of over 200 students. Even at the earliest stages, the team have proven themselves as smart thinkers and a safe pair of hands, and have given us confidence that there are both long-term and short-term returns to be made.
“We’re excited about the massive opportunity in vocational education – a $16 billion market that’s been crying out for simplification. With millions of students struggling to find the right course and providers struggling to reach them, Enrola steps in to make that connection seamless. Our mission is simple: we want to get more people into life-changing education. And we’re genuinely excited because every step forward brings us closer to transforming an industry that desperately needs it." Jo Thomas, co-founder, Enrola
The Challenges we saw
Keeping plates spinning on a two-sided marketplace
Marketplaces are one of the most common business models we see founders pitching, often inspired by the truly outlier amounts of value captured by the likes of Uber and airbnb as intermediaries of massive industries in transport and accommodation. And yet despite these success stories, many investors approach the thematic with high degrees of caution given their famously tricky reputation.
A true marketplace needs natural pull on both the consumer and supplier side of the market. Aggregating suppliers is a necessary, but insufficient step on its own. You must also organically aggregate demand. With each step, it should get easier to acquire the incremental consumer, as well as the incremental supplier.
Take the likes of Compare The Market and their insurance aggregator business. Here consumers trust a third party to appropriately diligence the market on their behalf, and know (thanks to some clever meerkat themed marketing) that no additional direct costs will be borne by them for doing so. Likewise, insurers recognise aggregators like Compare the Market are an undeniable channel for new customer acquisition, and accept (perhaps not always happily) that sharing margin with these third parties is a necessary cost of doing business and protection against their competitors capturing greater market share.
Getting that flywheel spinning is hard, but we have confidence the Enrola are set up for success. On the supply side, we believe that Enrola can scale its RTO partners by a factor of 10, providing sufficient coverage of study areas, geographies and study options (e.g. online, hybrid). The team are already on track to do this, and with a strong business model underpinning them. Enrola have negotiated capturing 20 - 25% of course fees for successful enrolments (approximately $1,500 per student).
On the demand side, we need to believe that Enrola can do a superior job of generating leads via disciplined paid marketing, alongside investment in owned channels and partnerships. So far, they have demonstrated strength in converting leads via a fantastic digital experience supported by an effective, light-touch sales process.
Expanding the TAM
Like many marketplaces, hyper specific focus in the early days must naturally dovetail into increasing the size of prize via new customer segments. For Enrola, there are a few natural dimensions of expansion.
First comes expanding the number of courses offered; growing from over 90 to 200 within the next 6 months and extending into additional study areas like Mental Health, Business and Education. Next, Enrola are looking to expand from their initial focus of “Job Switchers” (mid career professionals seeking relevant qualifications to access a new job pathway) to “School Leavers / Career Finders” (15-24 year olds seeking their first vocational career pathway) that comprise approximately 30% of the market. Finally, there is a path to expand beyond only government funded placements to the two-thirds of the market that are privately funded; acknowledging this represents a fundamentally different proposition to prospective students.
Questions we had for the team
How do you retain high quality of placements at scale?
Maintaining RTO quality is a real challenge and one the industry hasn’t always navigated well. In the past, government reform of VET student loans was a way to ensure funding was achieving the right educational outcomes. Most recently, the government has invested in the cleanup of RTOs, reviewing them with a fine tooth comb to eliminate low quality providers. For example, any RTO that did not have students in the last 12 months closed on June 30th this year. This helped drive consolidation of enrolments to higher quality RTOs and shutter those flailing.
Enrola are also doing their bit to rein in the wild west of RTO providers through a relentless focus on quality. When an RTO is of a high standard, not only do more students complete their certifications, but they enter the workforce as valuable contributors. Enrola determines the calibre of RTOs by combining government audit and quality data, their own proprietary metrics, mystery shopping and ongoing reviews from students. The curation process is ongoing, happening both before they sign the RTO on as partners, as well as after student enrolment. This mechanism keeps quality high; providers that don’t meet Enrola’s standards are swiftly off-boarded (an occurrence that has already happened).
How we built conviction
Ultimately, we believe that the need for students to find the right high-quality course is both large and growing. On top of this, Enrola’s model, which incentivises course completion, not just placements, complements government policy and positions them favourably to become a meaningful player in a growing space. This is a point of difference, as previous commission models only incentivised leads generated; leaving the burden of both enrolment and completion to the RTO. When it comes to the team, Jo and Yvette’s expertise in marketplaces and scalable tech is both deep and precise. As founders, they have shown they can do more with less and can focus on driving outcomes that matter. We are delighted to be part of their journey to help prospective students find further education options that fit just right and enrol with confidence.
https://www.ncver.edu.au/news-and-events/media-releases/new-report-shows-vet-numbers-on-the-rise#:~:text=The%20latest%20data%20from%20the,million%20between%202021%20and%202022.
https://www.ncver.edu.au/news-and-events/media-releases/new-report-shows-vet-numbers-on-the-rise#:~:text=The%20latest%20data%20from%20the,million%20between%202021%20and%202022.
https://www.training.com.au/rto/#:~:text=Only%20RTOs%20can%20issue%20nationally,that%20currently%20exist%20within%20Australia.
“Shortages in Certificate III and IV qualified workers is a key concern of government and industry” (2023 Jobs and Skills Report).
https://www.ncver.edu.au/research-and-statistics/publications/all-publications/government-funded-students-and-courses-2023
https://monitor.icef.com/2024/09/australia-private-vet-providers-receive-devastating-enrolment-cap-allocations-for-2025/
https://monitor.icef.com/2024/09/australia-private-vet-providers-receive-devastating-enrolment-cap-allocations-for-2025/