Dev Clever (DEV)  has formally entered into a three-year exclusive worldwide partnership contract with Lenovo Group Limited ("Lenovo"). 

Today's announcement represents the formalisation of legal and commercial terms in line with the actual product launch and worldwide expansion of the initial Heads of Terms Agreement that the Company signed with Lenovo in September 2019 for educational solutions originally limited to the UK, Canada and the US. 

The partnership is key for the distribution and commercialisation of Dev Clever's careers guidance platforms, Launchyourcareer.com and VICTAR VR, which now form part of Lenovo's new and comprehensive offering for the online education sector. 

As part of the partnership, the VICTAR VR application will be pre-installed on all Lenovo VR Classroom devices, as a part of the Lenovo VR Classroom V2 solution and the Launchyourcareer.com analytic subscription will be sold as a complete package to educational institutions globally. 

Lenovo launched its new product in the United States on 1 April 2020 and it is anticipated to be rolled out to other territories with localised versions of Launchyourcareer.com and VICTAR VR as they become available.  This complete solution is now being taken to market via Lenovo's global network of vertical sales teams, distributors and resellers. 

Dev Clever is currently presenting to a large number of Lenovo distributors and resellers and it is anticipated that material put through volumes will start to crystalise during the latter part of the 2020 calendar year. 

Early Adoption 

In addition, the Company's two bespoke platforms, VICTAR VR and Launchyourcareer.com, will also be sold as a standalone product to be known as 'The VR Career Launcher'. This includes a SaaS-based subscription fee for the software from Dev Clever and a Mirage S3 VR Headset from Lenovo. The VR Career Launcher product is a scalable solution which is designed to be a soft introduction of VR learning within schools and its aim is to achieve high levels of early adoption. 

Shares in DEV started the month trading off lows of 3.4p to open at 7.25p following today’s announcement. 

Chris Jeffries, CEO Dev Clever said: "The agreement with Lenovo, a leading manufacturer and provider of technology and innovation to the global education market, is a testament to our comprehensive service platform and I am delighted that we are partnering with such a well-known market leader. 

This partnership enables us to offer our bespoke service capabilities to educational institutions globally and with the dedicated partnership support delivering our software at scale. 

To date, the product has been well received in the US market and we look forward to updating shareholders accordingly as we commence activation in other geographies alongside Lenovo in the future." 

Richard Henderson, Director of Global Education Solutions, Intelligent Devices Group, Lenovo said: Lenovo is delighted to collaborate with Dev Clever to deliver a truly ground-breaking Careers Guidance offering to schools as part of our VR Classroom solution. Together, we provide a unique mechanism to address the needs of pupils as they embark on their career journey. Dev Clever offers an engaging and immersive VR experience for pupils, and a strong analytics engine for career guiders in schools, which fully supports Lenovo's objective to empower personalized education and prepare students for a smarter future." 

Vox Markets has modelled the market size for schools and classrooms, further and higher education Institutions, Enterprise sales to Corporates and the managed service opportunity, which is the Group’s premium offering. Key findings include, on relatively conservative estimates, forecasts the revenue opportunity for Educate increases from approximately £1m FY20 to over £26m per annum in FY23.  

Based on this case study for UK, Canada and the US alone, this would suggest the Company could be valued in FY23 on 4x revenue of more than £27m, suggesting a significant re-rating of the stock over the next 2-3 years. 

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