£2 million deal for Birmingham social network Wambiz

A Birmingham tech firm has sold the intellectual property and distribution rights to its social network to a education specialist for £2 million.

Established in 2013, Wambiz is a social network for students to connect, communicate and collaborate with peers, teachers and institutions with the aim of increasing engagement with young people while outside of the classroom.

It is used in the UK, Australia and New Zealand and the company is now focusing on expanding into new markets in mainland Europe and the US.

Headquartered in Bristol, Tribal Group provides technology products and services to the education, learning and training markets and Wambiz will be novating 34 existing customer contracts to it.

Wambiz is based at the Innovation Birmingham Campus and has previously been a member of its Entrepreneurs for the Future business incubation programme.

Wambiz co-founder Harry Jawanda said: “When I started Wambiz with my business partner Andrew West, we were focused on fast growth.

“Seeking investment was a crucial part of that.

“The deal with Tribal is our largest to date and it was important for us to find a partner that understands education and could take our solution deeper into that market.

“We were also delighted that Tribal shared our vision of using private social networks to improve student engagement as the most natural way for st
udents to communicate.”

Barbara Staruk, managing director of product and development at Tribal, added: “We are excite
d to have formalised our relationship with Wambiz and have the opportunity to fully integrate the Wambiz solution into our new student information framework.
“We welcome all of Wambiz’s education customers to Tribal’s extensive customer community and will look to provide them
with exceptional support and even more innovative solutions as we move forward.”