50. Atom Learning

Founders: Jake O’Keeffe and Alex Hatvany
Founded: 2017
Website: www.atomlearning.co.uk

Squeezing into the top half of our list (up 14 places from its place in the 2019 rankings) is Atom Learning.

Led by Jake O’Keeffe and Alex Hatvany, Atom Learning is an online educational platform for students. With content built by teachers and underpinned by ground-breaking machine learning processes, Atom Learning delivers a daring, data-driven approach to education.

Yet, Atom Learning was faced with an early roadblock familiar to so many businesses that have tried to scale in the education sector – parents won’t buy if the school doesn’t, and the school doesn’t have the money to. So, just as in the famous case of its namesake, Atom Learning split its offering – a free version for use in the classroom, and a premium platform which parents can subscribe to on a monthly basis.

Students aged seven to 11 can brush up with over 40,000 bespoke practice questions and more than 500 video and text-based teaching resources from the comfort of their own home, while a unique algorithm keeps them on their optimal learning path.

As for Atom Learning, its ambitious, forward-facing vision for education’s future is borne out in even bigger plans. Within 12 months of launching, it’s working with more than 400 schools, and boasts over 5,000 parent subscribers on the books. It’s also partnered with Galore Park (a subsidiary of Hachette), and is in talks with two national governments to roll out the Atom Learning platform across even more countries.

Whether you’re a parent, a teacher, or just an avid follower of history in the making, you’re set to be hearing a lot more about Atom Learning.