Edtech startup JADE raises £450k led by GC Angels with Jenson Ventures
This article covers JADE, a Manchester-based edtech startup, which has raised £450k in a pre-seed funding round led by GC Angels with co-investor Jenson Ventures. The development aims to support universities and colleges by scaling JADE's platform for managing international student recruitment agents and providing centralised tools for oversight, compliance and analytics.
JADE, a Manchester-based edtech startup, has raised £450,000 in a pre-seed funding round led by GC Angels with co-investor Jenson Ventures. The cash will be used to accelerate product development, expand commercial activity and grow the team as the company scales its platform for managing international student recruitment agents.
Why it matters
Universities and colleges are under growing scrutiny for how they recruit international students and manage third-party agents. Centralised tools for agent oversight and compliance are becoming a practical necessity as institutions face regulatory pressure and reputational risk from opaque recruitment networks. JADE’s funding signals investor appetite for technology that helps higher education institutions tighten control over agent relationships and data.
Inside the product
JADE offers a single platform to manage relationships with international recruitment agents. Core features include training and certification, resource management, contract handling, analytics and commission management. The company is also building capabilities for agent onboarding, due diligence and compliance aimed at strengthening institutional oversight of recruitment networks.
Founded in 2025, JADE already counts the Royal College of Art among its institutional partners and was a finalist at The PIEoneer Awards 2026. Its platform is used by institutions across the UK, Ireland, Malta, France, Spain, the US and Canada, and it hosts over 600 education agents from 120 countries. Since the funding, JADE has continued product development based on institutional feedback and organised its first International Recruitment Leadership Forum in Ireland to convene university representatives.
Who are the investors?
The round was led by GC Angels, with Jenson Ventures joining as a co-investor. JADE’s route to investment began through GC Angels’ Venture Forward accelerator, where the business participated in the second cohort.
In the announcement, Ranvir Singh, Senior Investment Manager at GC Angels, said:
JADE is addressing a practical challenge for higher education institutions, particularly as expectations around recruitment agent oversight and compliance increase. Having supported Kamila and Dhaval through Venture Forward, it’s encouraging to see their progress and the programme’s ability to get ambitious founders investor-ready. The investment will help the business develop its product, strengthen its commercial capabilities and build on its international presence.
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Founder perspective
In the announcement, Kamila Malavia, Co-founder & CEO at JADE, said:
Having spent almost two decades in international higher education and student recruitment, I saw how difficult it was for institutions to manage agent relationships using fragmented systems. Dhaval and I founded JADE because we believed universities needed a dedicated technology platform to bring these processes together and strengthen oversight of their international recruitment networks.
In the announcement, Kamila Malavia, Co-founder & CEO at JADE, said:
The Venture Forward programme fundamentally changed how we approached fundraising and helped us understand our business from an investor’s perspective. The guidance from Ranvir and the wider GC Angels team was invaluable. This investment is an important milestone for us. It is enabling us to develop the platform, strengthen our team and accelerate our international growth. Our ambition is to establish JADE as the operating system for higher education institutions around the world.
JADE has also appointed Adam Pettit as Commercial Director; he brings roughly 15 years of international higher education experience and will support the company’s expansion into key markets.
The bigger picture
The deal underlines a practical strand within edtech investment: tools that help institutions manage compliance, procurement and international partnerships. As UK and European universities navigate tighter oversight of agent-based recruitment, demand for software that centralises processes and provides audit-ready records is likely to grow.
For founders and investors, JADE’s progress through an angel-led accelerator into a funded pre-seed round is a reminder that sector-specific problems with clear regulatory or operational drivers can produce investable opportunities for early-stage edtech startups across the UK and Europe.
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