London-based edtech Multiverse cut dozens of jobs amid widening losses, company filings show.
The upskilling startup, launched in 2016 by CEO Euan Blair, made 55 redundancy payments in the year to the end of March 2025, according to accounts filed with Companies House.
The filings show Multiverse recorded a pre-tax loss of £63.3m for the year ending March 2025 — up £2.6m on the prior period — even as revenues climbed more than a third to just under £80m.
“In line with our commitment to invest in our people and give them the skills to maximise their productivity, we are employing slightly fewer people but rewarding them more,” Multiverse told City AM, citing rising staff costs.
“Our accelerating revenue growth was achieved even as headcount fell slightly, for the first year since founding, and even as client and learner facing teams have grown.”
Multiverse's filings do show the company is trending towards profitability, however, with earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization up from -£61.3m to -£59.7m in the same period.
A company spokesperson told Sifted: "Companies are looking for ways to create genuine productivity improvements from their AI investments. We're delivering that both for our growing customer base, and at Multiverse, where revenue per employee is up 37%. Our revenue growth is accelerating, and our key earnings metric, EBITDA, has further improved as we deploy our strategy towards profitability."
The latest round of cutbacks comes on the heels of a broader shift in focus.
The startup has pivoted from its original mission of placing school leavers into apprenticeships towards upskilling mid-career employees for corporate clients, a shift that triggered earlier employee cuts and a retreat from the US market after missing revenue targets there.
Discussing the earlier round of layoffs, Blair — the son of former UK prime minister Tony Blair — previously told Sifted: “We waited too long to bring clear structure to Multiverse, how we run the business and establish highly organised functions.
“I’m a big believer that in nearly every case when a business fails, it’s suicide not murder, right? Self-inflicted wounds are the ones you’ve got to be most aware of.”
