Record growth and industry recognition for EdTech specialist Academia Group

Managed IT services firm The @AcademiaGroup, has reported continued momentum in 2020/21 with strong year-on-year revenue growth, strategic customer and market expansion and prominent industry recognition. 

In the fiscal year ending December 31, 2020, sales grew 17% over the same period in 2019. Profit in the same timeframe leapt from £754k to £1,629k, and profit margin also increased by 79%.

Academia Technology Group began as an IT reseller selling to the education and public sectors through government frameworks. In 2019 the Company and all subsidiaries, were acquired by Strive Capital, a capital investment company owned by Andrew Harman, the founder of Annodata. 

Mark McCormack, Chief Commercial Officer, The Academia Group stated:

“Every indication is that demand for Academia’s IT services, particularly centred on thousands of schools, colleges and universities across the UK, will grow considerably throughout the rest of 2021 and beyond

According to the government, the UK has the largest EdTech sector in Europe, with a major focus new technologies such as AI, augmented reality, and online education. As a result, this has made the UK a global hotspot for the industry. Last year the number of EdTech firms surpassed 1,000 for the first time and over the past five years, UK school shave spent over £1bn on digital learning tools.

“A large part of this change was of course the pandemic, which has driven change throughout the sector. 2020 will be remembered as the year that millions of children were forced to leave their classrooms and start learning online – and UK EdTech sector and The Academia Group were there to help,” continued McCormack.

The company has also strengthened its finance team with the appointment of a new Finance Director, Paul Nikolov, who’s career spans a number of industry sectors notably eCommerce and IT services. 

The business recently announced it has retained its ‘Rank 1’ status on the ‘National framework agreement for products using Apple native operating systems, associated accessories and services ITS6004 HW’ (Apple equipment and services framework for Higher Education). This is the fifth successive year that Academia has retained the framework.

The agreement provides a dedicated supply channel for all UK Higher Education (HE) institutions. Academia has a team of dedicated HE account managers who are specialists in the supply of Apple equipment and related services for HE institutions.

The Academia Group team – of which a full quarter are women – was also recognised at the recent CRN ‘Women In Channel Awards’, picking up two awards in total.

Andrew Harman, founder of Strive Capital, added:

“Academia has excellent heritage in providing IT services, particularly to thousands of schools, colleges and universities across the UK and has a very strong and experienced management team. That said the last year has been one of the most challenging I can ever remember, and despite that – and the lockdowns which impacted the education sector so profoundly – the business has simply gone from strength to strength.  This is testament to the phenomenal management team, supported by a comprehensive portfolio of solutions and services based on prestigious and reputable vendors.

“As the business continues to grow now is the time to not only expand the management team, and continue to build on our framework approach to supercharge our growth into 2022 and beyond.”