The funding from investors Gresham House will support the nursery group’s plans to increase its sites from 20 to more than 80 by 2025, adding more than 5,000 childcare places and employing an additional 3,000 staff.
This is Gresham House’s first investment in the education sector via its second sustainability flagship fund – the British Sustainable Infrastructure Fund II (BSIF II). The move makes the investor NFC’s largest minority shareholder.
NFC’s goal is to replace the reported 16,000 childcare places lost over the past five years, while providing extended opening hours to enable parents to return or remain at work.
As previously reported by Nursery World, other plans of the nursery group include providing an additional five free childcare places to children whose parents are unable to afford nursery fees every year, which Gresham House has committed to support.
Peter Bachmann, managing director of sustainable infrastructure at Gresham House, said, ‘The pandemic has reaffirmed how essential early years education is for families, and how it is an enabler of more sustainable and productive economies. N’s focus on redefining early years education, and importantly early years careers, complements our socially focused impact agenda well, whilst creating a highly attractive investment opportunity, with great potential to scale, given the chronic shortage of quality new nursey places available in the UK. Through our investment in N Family Club, we want to help address the enduring trilemma of availability and quality immediately, and affordability over time, in early years education. We believe the other recent investments by institutional investors in the education sector prove both the financial attractiveness and structural importance of this space.’
Chief executive and founder of N Family Group Phil Sunderland added, ‘This significant investment from Gresham House and their BSIF II fund represents a huge vote of confidence in our team’s approach to early years education and our strong sustainability ethos. Their financial support, expertise, and shared commitment to promoting wellbeing and sustainability will enable us to accelerate our growth plans, creating thousands of new nursery places, new jobs, and new possibilities for parents.’
