DEV.L Regulatory News (DEV)

21 June 2021

Dev Clever Holdings plc

("Dev Clever" or "the Company")

Proposed Acquisition of The Inspirational Learning Group Limited 

Formation of Career Challenge competition with initial major activations in the UK and India

Dev Clever, a leading developer of online and immersive career guidance and development platforms and consumer engagement experiences, is pleased to announce that it has entered into definitive heads of terms to acquire The Inspirational Learning Group Limited ("TILG"), a profitable and established UK-based educational business.

Under the definitive heads of terms, TILG will be acquired for a cash consideration of £200,000 and the issue of 6,000,000 new ordinary shares in Dev Clever[1], subject to a phased two-year lock-in period. In addition, the Company will be issuing 500,000 new ordinary shares in lieu of introductory and professional service fees.

The proposed acquisition will complement Dev Clever's existing career guidance and development platforms and naturally enhances the Company's content offering. This is expected to be earnings accretive from year one. Furthermore, it is expected that the TILG acquisition will complete by the end of August 2021.

Founded in 2016, TILG owns and operates various programmes designed to engage, inspire and motivate young people, including The National Enterprise Challenge ("TNEC") which is sponsored by organisations such as PWC and NatWest Bank. Every year, circa 50,000 children from schools across the UK enrol in TNEC, whose aim it is to inspire career aspirations in young people. The event concludes with a competition that has been previously supported by industry leaders such as Sir Alan Sugar and Theo Paphitis.

Dev Clever recently commissioned independent research which highlighted the impact of COVID-19 on the career sector, specifically the ability to deliver and manage work experience programmes for young people and the subsequent opportunity this gives companies in identifying future employees and apprentices; vital to ensuring businesses can nurture the talent and skills required for their future workforces.

Following completion of the acquisition, Dev Clever plans to launch its own National Career Challenge ("NCC") combining TNEC directly with virtual work experience and assessments in late Q4 2021. The NCC will be available to all students in the UK and will enable more organisations to deliver bespoke post talent assessment with immediate work experience programmes using Dev Clever's proprietary platform. Moreover, young people will be incentivised to participate in the NCC for the opportunity to gain guaranteed apprenticeship placements and scholarships provided by the sponsoring companies.

Dev Clever intends to deliver the NCC program in India, where it has a well-established partnership with the National Independent Schools Alliance ("NISA"), in H1 2022. The Company will invite all 1.5 million public and private schools to participate and thus has the potential of reaching c. 280 million students to participate in what will become known as the Indian National Career Challenge.

Subsequently, Dev Clever expects to use the Career Challenge initiative to enter additional large emerging market territories over the next three years.

Chris Jeffries, CEO Dev Clever, said:

"The add-on of the Career Challenge initiative with Dev Clever's leading career guidance and educational content platform further enhances our proprietary ecosystem. Our ability to efficiently connect employers with relevant pre-selected talent is going to be significant all-round and should result in much reduced friction for students identifying, finding, and securing their first job. This is a substantial development and we are very much looking forward to swiftly integrating TILG's operations and bringing the Career Challenge in the first instance to the UK and India and thereafter to other large emerging market territories."

Michael and Ben Dyer, co-founders, The Inspirational Learning Group, added:

"We are delighted to be joining Dev Clever which will supercharge the collective offering to young people and will be a great step towards bridging the skills gap. The work we have done at TILG over the past 5 years has seen us go from an innovative idea to the largest schools' enterprise challenge in the UK. The work that Dev Clever is doing is revolutionary and bringing our expertise together in this marketplace will allow us to offer schools and employers all over the world an excellent offering in careers guidance and educational content."

This announcement contains information which, prior to its disclosure, was inside information as stipulated under Regulation 11 of the Market Abuse (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019/310 (as amended).

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Notes to Editors:

Dev Clever Holdings plc, together with its wholly owned subsidiary DevClever Limited, is a software and technology group based in Tamworth, United Kingdom, specialising in the use of lightweight integrations of cloud-based VR and gamification technologies to deliver rich customer engagement experiences across both the education and commercial sectors. In January 2019, Dev Clever listed on the Standard List of the London Stock Exchange. The Group's core focus is the development and commercialisation of its core platforms - Educate (its primary focus) and Agency Services (its secondary focus).

Educate Division:

Through Educate, Dev Clever aims to reduce the global skills shortage by delivering an enhanced careers guidance service via its online platform, Launchyourcareer.com, and virtual reality software (Victar VR). The business has established a global partnership with Lenovo to roll its service worldwide, with offerings already on the market in the UK, US and Canada. Dev Clever is also focused on the Indian market and has partnered with its National Independent Schools Alliance (NISA) and content provider Veative to provide a comprehensive service offering within Indian budget private schools. Through this, the business is developing and intends to launch a direct-to-consumer offering in India.

Agency Services Division:

The Company's Agency Services division provides customers from the retail, brand and hospitality sectors with bespoke application and customisation of the Group's proprietary cloud-based products in order to increase consumer engagement, transactional efficiencies and enhance customer experience within their venues.

 For further information, please visit www.devcleverholdingsplc.com