Founders of education provider Twinkl study £500m Vitruvian deal

The husband-and-wife team who founded one of Britain's biggest privately owned educational resources providers are close to sealing a deal that will propel them into the ranks of the country's richest entrepreneurs.

Sky News has learned that Jon and Susie Seaton, who established Twinkl in 2010 in a bedroom in their Sheffield home, are in advanced talks with the private equity firm Vitruvian Partners about the sale of a minority stake.

One source said the couple were negotiating the sale of a large minority shareholding in a transaction that would value Twinkl at approximately £500m.

If they sold a 30% stake, that would hand the Seatons a pre-tax windfall of close to £170m.

Twinkl provides digital teaching resources to millions of educators around the world, and according to its website had 4m users globally by the year of its tenth anniversary.

That number is said to have grown substantially since then.

According to accounts filed at Companies House for the year ended 30 April, 2022, it recorded turnover of just over £55m and operating profit of £28.2m.

At the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, Twinkl made its entire library of content free to the teaching profession for three months.

Later in 2020, Mr Seaton was awarded an MBE for services to technology and education during the pandemic in the Queen's Birthday Honours List.

Twinkl could not be reached for comment, while Vitruvian did not respond to enquiries.