Absolutely raises £250,000

E.learning Age, Sep 2005

Absolutely Training Ltd, a provider of regulatory e-learning solutions to the investment and retail banking market, has raised £250,000 from The Capital Fund.

The Capital Fund is a £50 million venture capital fund which backs fast-growing, small and medium sized enterprises in Greater London. Absolutely Training will channel the finance into new personnel, technology and marketing initiatives to expand its training solutions into additional sectors, such as HR and the legal profession.

With the cash injection, Absolutely Training can maintain the rapid growth levels of the past five years while managing the smooth upgrade of its market leading, patent protected e-learning technology systems.

Established in 2000 by a team of financial trainers and City professionals with backgrounds in HR management and compliance, Absolutely Training has a 200-strong client base of predominantly large financial services organisations such as Barclays Capital, Pink Homeloans, VW Financial Services and Norwich and Peterborough Building Society. The company claims 35 per cent of the UK's top lenders and 44 per cent of the UK's building societies are customers.

Absolutely Training currently serves financial services firms working under the Financial Services Authority (FSA) regulatory regime. Absolutely Training seeks to ensure competency is met, money is saved and administration is kept to a minimum.

Paul Fegan, founder and managing director of Absolutely Training, said: "Our approach is based on delivering quality training to students, as well as meeting the specific compliance needs of different businesses. Our e-learning courses save our customers money while allowing employees to learn at their own pace and convenience with a level of personalised feedback that is just not available via traditional training methods, such as Powerpoint presentations. The courses are fully interactive, with the content designed to test and engage students, as this ensures much higher retention levels.

"Whilst being fully consistent in meeting the FSA's training regulations for practices such as money laundering and insurance and mortgage sales, our technology allows firms to opt for "customised compliance" to maintain their organisational look and feel using a patented "question generation" software. Once staff have passed exams, the reports can be easily shared around the business and, crucially, with the regulator.

"We now plan to enhance our existing offering, and to expand our e-learning training solutions into other areas, such as continuing professional development training for the legal profession and training for HR professionals."

The Capital Fund's Investment Manager, Stuart Nicol, said: "Absolutely Training has developed into a significant player in online training solutions with its distinctive offering that is tailored to meet individual client requirements. Its bespoke products are flexible, easy to use and cost-effective and it enjoys the support of many satisfied clients. Absolutely Training is well-placed to expand into other sectors."