Akcela are delighted to confirm that James Adams and Matt Lawley have joined Readingmate as advisors and shareholders as the company begins its journey towards accelerated growth.
Readingmate offers parents a unique approach to encouraging and developing the love of reading in children. This is achieved through a three-pronged approach; the Readingmate app (to encourage and inspire children to read), the Readingmate learning Hub (to empower parents and educators) and the bookshop that gives back (through donations to schools and charities).
Speaking on the engagement, James Adams – Director of Akcela was delighted to be involved with such a worthwhile cause. “Readingmate brings together two incredibly powerful elements. Firstly, as a cause it’s something that resonates with people easily. There’s a clear outcome to what is trying to be achieved. Secondly, we have been able to work together to create a clearly defined differentiated value proposition. The next few months are going to be incredible exciting for Readingmate, and we are delighted to be a part of that.”
Co-Founder James Rix has been impressed by the work Akcela have achieved in bringing Readingmates’ core value proposition to a commercialised offering and implementation strategy so quickly. “We knew we had a great product, we knew what we wanted to achieve, but we had hit a bit of a wall in terms of commercialisation and next steps. There’s been a lot of work with our system, what we know it can do, what separates us from the others. We’ve been able to revisit this and reframe that at the centre of what Readingmate is. That’s exciting, because you can see the goal, you can see it’s achievable, but we also have milestones to make it happen.”
Co-Founder Hannah Rix was focused on how recent developments help deliver the foundation that Readingmate was set up to achieve. “We have a real sense of purpose with Readingmate, how we strive to develop the opportunities of young people through the love of reading. We will soon be actively engaging schools in and around Norfolk to discuss the business in more detail. When we look at what every party gains by being involved, it really is a win-win-win situation. We think we have something special with what we want to do.”
Reading Mate contacted Akcela based on their experience supporting Start Up businesses throughout Norfolk, their proven market segmentation approach to business growth as well as their experience of working as consultants within the education sector.