Backed by ECMC Group, Dell Foundation and Others, New Apprenticeship Closes $2.5M Seed Funding to Solve Entry Level Tech and Diversity Hiring Gaps

San Antonio, Texas–New Apprenticeship (NEW), the federally recognized digital apprenticeship solution that is bridging the tech skills and opportunity gap, announced today the close of a $2.5M seed funding round. The financing was led by ECMC Group’s Education Impact Fund, with participation from the Dell Foundation, Michelson 20MM Foundation, Learnstart, and others. This funding will allow the company to build out its management team while also making significant investments in sales operations and technology to efficiently scale and serve the growing number of tech employers and their surrounding communities.

“We believe apprenticeship equips employers to become the engines of digital talent production. Forward-thinking companies partner with us to build sustainable talent pipelines, fueling their short and long-term talent needs. Modern degree apprenticeships represent the greatest breakthrough in workforce innovation because they create accessible pathways for students to pursue high-value careers without requiring access to costly 4-year universities.” said Brad Voeller, CEO, New Apprenticeship.

NEW partners with leading employers to fundamentally change the way tech talent is recruited and developed. This maximizes return on talent investments through ownership and control of talent pipelines, ensuring faster onboarding, improved performance, higher retention, and overall lower cost of talent. The company was founded to support diverse communities of students, veterans and the underemployed with an innovative “earn-and-learn” pathway that combines on-the-job experience with expert training. A NEW apprenticeship leads to a Department of Labor (DOL) Apprenticeship Certification, including up to 30-hours of credit towards a bachelor’s degree from accredited partner colleges. In collaboration with education and workforce partners, NEW offers learners a direct on-ramp to tech careers where they previously did not exist. And employers get direct access to a diverse rich, tech talent ready pipeline yielding substantial ROI savings in both hiring and retention gains.

NEW’s 8–12-week pre-apprenticeship program lays the right foundation to prepare and ensure candidates are work-ready on their first day of employment. Once employed, candidates begin their 12-month registered apprenticeship through NEW’s proven experience-based learning and customized model that features industry-recognized credentialing. Certifications range from digital marketing, data analytics, IT service management, cyber security, web development, etc. Coaching and mentoring accelerates employee growth and organizational impact, while organizations and apprentices gain unprecedented access to no-cost pre-employment, live-training and an external community of experts who apply real-time best practices to their workplaces.

“ECMC Group’s mission is to empower underserved learners to successfully achieve their academic and professional goals,” said Joe Watt, senior director, Corporate Development and Impact Investing for ECMC Group. “Alongside our organization’s growing career and technical education offerings, our Education Impact Fund is focused on investing in emerging ventures that provide innovative training programs and solutions that result in great ROI for learners and workers. New Apprenticeship’s ‘earn-and-learn’ model does just that by offering high-quality, employer-validated training and onramps to high-growth careers in technology”.

Concurrent with the closing, the company named Kris Knopf as its Chief Revenue Officer. Kris is an established sales and marketing leader in the field with deep experience in enterprise sales across  technology, healthcare, and financial services industries. Kris has built a team prepared to develop custom offerings for companies seeking integrated solutions to support significant hiring of (digital marketing, data, cyber, cloud, and IT) tech and digital talent at scale.

New Apprenticeship has extensive partnerships helping companies, channel partners and apprentices explore new pathways to better diversify, promote equity and inclusion, and integrate fully scalable apprenticeships for the workforce of the future.