Cutting back: Former PM Tony Blair’s son Euan
An education start-up founded by the son of former Labour prime minister Tony Blair has cut dozens of jobs as the unicorn tries to turn a profit.
Multiverse, which was founded by Euan Blair in 2016, has made as many as 40 redundancies in the past year – trimming back its team that helps young people find jobs with major firms such as Google and Facebook.
The company was originally formed to help youngsters get into corporate jobs without going through the traditional university route. This is in stark contrast with his father who, when in power, set the target of getting half of young adults into university.
Now Multiverse is looking to move away from apprenticeships and focus on ‘upskilling’, which trains workers in areas such as coding.
A Multiverse spokesman said: ‘It’s completely normal for companies at growth stage to require different skill sets in key areas, and we’ve been developing our team, and hiring people for the next stage of that exciting journey.’ Despite his privileged upbringing, Blair, 39, has previously said higher education taught him ‘nothing,’ criticising ‘a system that was obsessed with using academics, with all the latent biases and problems inherent in that, to select people.’
Since launching, Multiverse has raised more than £300m in venture capital funding and last year was valued at around £1.4billion – giving it a unicorn status and Blair a paper fortune of nearly £350m. Last year he bought a £22m five-storey townhouse in Kensington, West London, where he lives with wife Suzanne and their child.
The company makes its money by charging blue chip clients a fee once an apprentice is successfully placed. The client then pays Multiverse to train the apprentices.
But Blair junior has had a tough time turning this mammoth valuation into profit. The start-up has made losses for six years in a row, reporting a loss of £14.2m for the year ending in March 2022.
And despite its unicorn status, Blair told Bloomberg TV in May that a possible stock market listing of Multiverse was still ‘some way off’ for the business.
Danni Hewson, analyst at AJ Bell, said: ‘A slowing economy often demands strategic changes, and it seems Multiverse is doing just that, focusing in on ‘upskilling’ rather than the apprenticeships it built its name on.’
