Manchester's JADE raises £450K to scale agent-management platform
What's the deal? Manchester edtech startup JADE has raised £450,000 in an early-stage round led by GC AngelsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, with co-investor Jenson Ventures. Founded in 2025 by Kamila and Dhaval Malavia, the company builds software that helps universities manage their relationships with international student recruitment agents.
What's the endgame? JADE pulls agent-management tasks — onboarding, identity verification, compliance, contracts, training, and commission tracking — into one system. The funding will go toward product development, commercial growth, international expansion, and hiring, including a new commercial director.
Why now? The idea came from co-founder Kamila Malavia's two decades in international student recruitment, where she saw institutions struggle with fragmented systems. The pressure has grown as universities face greater scrutiny over how they oversee agent networks.
The platform is used across the UK, Ireland, Spain, the US, and Canada, with about 600 agents on the system. Its clients include the Royal College of Art, and the company was a finalist in the PIEoneer Awards 2026.
The raise followed GC Angels' Venture Forward accelerator, which JADE joined in its second cohort. "The Venture Forward programme helped us understand the investment process and what we needed to demonstrate to investors," Malavia said.
Ranvir Singh, 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."
The signal: UK edtech funding has cooled sharply, falling to £131.6m in 2025 from £697.8m in 2021, according to BeauhurstDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. Against that backdrop, £450,000 is a modest early-stage bet — but one that shows investors still back focused products solving specific problems.
Read more: prolificnorth.co.uk
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
