With more investment and new sites opening across London, N Family Club sets its sights on creating London’s best nursery group.
October 2018 – London-based nursery group, N Family Club, has raised investment from consumer-based venture capital trust, Pembroke VCT, as it looks to grow its sites across London.
Founded by Phil Sunderland, ‘N’ opened its first site in Stoke Newington in November 2017. Determined to redesign the nursery experience for families in the city, N offers a fresh outlook on early years education, trying to solve some of the key problems that most irritate parents.
‘Too often the service provided is alienating parents, with restrictive opening times – 8am to 5pm being the norm – and punitive late fees. In many cases the buildings are tired and poorly designed. Only 13% of London’s Nurseries are rated “Outstanding’’ by OFSTED’ says Phil Sunderland.
Gone are any punitive late fees, while daily opening hours of 7am-7pm allows flexibility as and when it’s needed. No more guilt about not providing your child with regular home-cooked meals; N has an on-site kitchen where two experienced chefs prepare fresh meals everyday from a monthly menu created with the help of Laura Matthews – formerly head of nutrition at Jamie Oliver.
The industry-wide issue of under-qualified, transient and disinterested educators is being tackled head on by N with a pioneering approach to building an outstanding team. Along with a rigorous in-house training programme and a dedicated People team, N has set up the N Academy to support its staff to pursue their own higher education at universities across London.
The nurseries themselves are design-led, tasteful spaces creating an exciting setting for children. N Family Club hosts a programme of evening events for parents including classes on child development and first aid as well as cooking and wellbeing workshops. Weekends welcome family events into the space, including regular exercise drop-ins (with childcare provided), circus workshops, puppet shows, sports days and kids dance classes.
A year in and the Stoke Newington site has had to close its waiting list due to high demand and been shortlisted for Nursery World & NMT awards.
Commenting on why they invested in ‘N’, Andrew Wolfson, managing director of Pembroke VCT says, ““N Family Club is an exciting opportunity due the breadth of the offer in terms of syllabus, flexibility, design and overall understanding of the issues at stake. Phil is an excellent founder and has built a top-class teamâ€.
Â
Â
NOTES to Editors:
About N – N Family Club is re-thinking early years education. Along with creating a group of progressive and design-led nurseries across London (the first opened in 2017, and they have three new sites in the pipeline), their offering includes membership to an exciting programme of events aimed at the whole family. www.nfamilyclub.com Â
Â
Â
About Pembroke VCT – www.pembrokevct.com
Pembroke VCT plc is a venture capital trust that invests in early stage consumer-focused businesses it believes have exciting growth prospects and strong brand value. Specifically, Pembroke focuses on the health and fitness, apparel and accessories, hospitality and media sectors.
Pembroke VCT was launched in 2013 and invests in companies where it can provide not simply capital, but additional value through the resources and experience of the team which are instrumental in aiding growth of the business.
Companies in the Pembroke portfolio include fresh juice and nut milk producer Plenish, specialist retail, deli and café group Sourced Market, bike light inventor Blaze, tight maker Heist Studios and fashion brand, Alexa Chung.
