Euan Blair, the eldest son of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, has secured backing from the wealthiest family in America, the Walton dynasty, for his education and apprenticeship
company, Multiverse. The deal, worth an estimated £345 million, saw the Walton family participate in a fundraising effort for the start-up, which has been operating since 2016. Multiverse provides school leavers with job opportunities and matches them with employers. The company makes its revenue by charging clients a fee once an apprentice is successfully placed, and its clients include well-known names such as the NHS, Google, and Facebook.
Multiverse says it offers a credible alternative to university that can compete with it, and the firm has already trained 10,000 apprentices at 1,000 businesses, with 93% of those apprentices remaining with the firm where they trained. Multiverse was valued at £1.4 billion in the latest fundraising round, which was backed by the Walton family and Zoma Capital, the family fund of Ben and Lucy Ana Walton, and this gave Euan Blair, who is 39 years old, a fortune of £345 million on paper through his 25% stake in the business.
The Walton family collectively owns 50% of Walmart, the US retail empire. Euan's new fortune is almost seven times that of his father, who is worth an estimated £50 million. Multiverse was given "unicorn" status after the latest fundraising round. Unicorn status is applied to start-ups with a value of over $1 billion (£810 million). Google also backed the fundraising effort, and the company has become one of the UK's most valuable start-ups.
Multiverse was granted a license to award degrees for courses studied alongside full-time jobs last year. The company says it is the first apprenticeship firm to receive such a license. Multiverse advocates the use of apprenticeships as a credible alternative to university for many young people, despite Tony Blair having expanded universities during his time in power, leading to concerns over a rise in low-value or "Mickey Mouse" degrees. In its latest set of accounts, for the year to the end of March 2022, Multiverse reported its sixth straight year of losses, which widened to £14.2 million from £10.9 million the previous year.
Multiverse's latest fundraising effort has seen the company secure backing from some of the wealthiest investors in the world. The company's success highlights the growing importance of apprenticeships as a credible alternative to university and underscores the role of start-ups in creating value and driving innovation. The involvement of the Walton dynasty, owners of Walmart, in the fundraising effort is likely to lend further credibility to Multiverse and may encourage more investors to back apprenticeship firms. Photo by Snowmanradio (talk), Wikimedia commons.