Microverse is the only online school for software developers, with no upfront costs - no matter where you’re from. Two years ago, I started Microverse to help anyone, anywhere, learn software development and connect with life-changing global opportunities. It all began with the notion that while talent is everywhere, opportunities are not.
So, I set out to reimagine what a global classroom should look like and to build a way to connect people in every corner of the world to life-changing opportunities.
While our team still has a long way to go, I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished in just two short years. Since being accepted into Y Combinator’s Summer ‘19 class, we’ve grown to a fully-distributed team of 20+ people from more than 10 countries, supporting 400+ students from 96+ countries.
We take pride in what makes us unique; our peer-to-peer and mastery-based learning environment is both rigorous and supportive, and molds collaborative, job-ready and globally-minded software developers. Our flexible tuition structure makes this kind of education accessible to individuals around the world. Students don’t pay anything until they’ve secured a job that pays them at least $1,000 USD per month, of which they pay 15% to Microverse until covering the full $15,000 USD cost of their education.
We’ve already seen, in ways both big and small, how Microverse is having a global impact. We’ve seen students from historically feuding countries - Serbia and Kosovo - set aside their differences to code together, and others take steps to overcome enormous challenges on a daily basis.
Our team has also witnessed firsthand how Microverse has created life-changing opportunities for students around the world...
“The amount of career and personal development support really surprised me. Microverse offers an extensive hiring support program that guides students through the hiring process, including interview strategies, portfolio development, and post-graduation check-ins. By the end of the program, I had truly become an autonomous engineer, ready to make an impact on innovative tech companies worldwide,” said Microverse alum from Taiwan, Max Li.
Fellow Microverse student, Yunus Emre Aybey, from Turkey, said, “In 3 months, I learned more than in 4 years studying computer engineering at my college [...]. Believe me when I say Microverse is not selling a dream from thousands of miles away. They are making them real.”
So it’s with great excitement that today, we’re announcing our $3.2 million seed funding round led by General Catalyst, with support from Y Combinator, Liquid 2 Ventures, Soma Capital, HackVC, Eventbrite founders Kevin & Julia Hartz, Gmail creator Paul Buchheit, Fifty Years and many other amazing angel investors who’ve supported us from the very beginning.
“One of my core beliefs as an investor is that talent is universal, even if the opportunity is not,” said Niko Bonatsos, Managing Director at General Catalyst. “Microverse is rare in that it has both a vision and a scalable system to empower talented students from around the world to build successful remote-first careers. I’m excited to be part of this journey with such a talented team.”
We feel lucky to have found great investors who believe in our mission, and who each offer something unique as partners of Microverse. Their support, guidance, and shared vision is helping us build a future of education that will enable us to tap into extraordinary human potential, on a global scale.
This investment will help us grow and develop our team, expand our technology, and improve our human systems, as well as offer more stipends so we can support more of our students throughout their journey in a scalable way. This will help us reach our goal of training and connecting 1 million people around the world to global opportunities by 2030.
We know that what we’re building at Microverse is a massive undertaking, one that has the power to reshape education as we know it. Our program emphasizes accountability, relationship building, communication, mentorship, and a structure that enables students to learn quickly and stay motivated to become world-class professionals that excel in remote environments.
With students in more than 95 countries, the financial reality of our student body also looks vastly different than those traditionally discussed in the more US-focused conversations around student loans and ISAs: Nearly 50% of our students made less than $500 USD a month before joining Microverse.
After graduating, more than 80% of our students have landed jobs within 12 weeks. They have been hired by large companies, like Kevin who landed a role at Microsoft, and startups, across North America and Europe, making 3-10x their previous salaries.
Our unique mastery-based learning model means students only complete the program when they are truly prepared for the job market. It also enables students to learn and overcome challenges quickly, while connecting with and growing diverse, global networks.
With big goals though, come big challenges. This is why I also want to share some of the realities we are currently facing:
Our innovative learning model comes with its own frustrations, as students must adapt to working with diverse people and learning styles, across time zones, in a highly-collaborative environment.
On top of that, though our median program completion time is currently 9 months, that still means half of our students take longer than that to complete the program. Throughout the program, many face challenges such as family, financial, and mental health struggles, the need to take on part-time jobs, and sometimes even joining at night to accommodate other commitments.
All of this is why, at Microverse, we take on the responsibility of not just providing a world-class curriculum, but finding ways to support all of our students throughout their journey and struggles.
We know the industry has huge challenges ahead, which is why we are excited to use the funds raised to tackle these challenges head-on and continue to shape education as we know it.
We’ve worked diligently to build a team and culture that reflects our core values and mission, rooted in our beliefs of transparency, global citizenship, eagerness to learn, and individual empowerment. We couldn’t be more excited to be working to connect 1 million talented individuals to global opportunities over the next 10 years. If you want to learn more about what we do, how to hire our students, or want to stay updated on our journey to connect talent to opportunity, please follow me @arielcamus and @microverseinc. If you're interested in joining Microverse, apply here.
- Ariel Camus, CEO & Founder, Microverse
Ariel is the founder & CEO of Microverse, an online school for software engineers. Read more about Microverse and how it can help you.
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