- Announced the reinstatement of BTRU to trading effective as of March 23rd , 2020
- Company is providing an update on the business and notice of the Annual General Meeting of shareholders
OTTAWA, March 19, 2020 – betterU Education Corp. (TSX VENTURE: BTRU, Frankfurt: 5OGA) (the “Company” or “betterU”) has been working with the TSX Venture Exchange to file all necessary outstanding filings and is now pleased to announce the reinstatement of BTRU to trading effective as of March 23rd , 2020. The Company is providing an update on the business and notice of the Annual General Meeting of shareholders.
Message from the CEO –
“Our company has gone through a lot of turmoil over the last year, and I want to thank all of you – our shareholders and extended stakeholders – for weathering this storm with us. The good news is that we are emerging stronger – more operationally and commercially focused – than ever. While the company’s trading was suspended over the last six-months we redoubled our efforts to build value for the Company and our shareholders.
I am pleased to announce the official launch of our enterprise B2B SaaS platform for skills development called ‘Ready-To-Goâ€, which is the first mobile platform on the market to bring together everything an employer needs to continually assess and skill any employee from entry level to executive in an integrated manner. Ready-To-Go is proving valuable to corporate customers globally, and we will be announcing contracts with companies in Canada, US, India and beyond in the coming months. Ready-To-Go completely aligns with our founding vision to provide best in class education-to-employment solutions for individuals and companies globally. What is different from the past was the realization while in stealth mode over the last few months, that we are not in the business of selling courses, we are in the business of building better people (hence our brand ‘betterU’). As such we have shifted our business model away from a pay-per-course (transactional) model to a pay-per-employee (software-as-a-service) model – whereby employers pay monthly subscriptions per employee for continual skills improvement and tracking.
This simple shift in framing – which is both on brand and on mission – is resonating strongly with public sector partners, private enterprise customers, and with individuals as end-user beneficiaries. While our focus has become more global in nature, we continue to maintain dedicated staff and skilling platforms for India, which inspired all of our hard work up to this point. There is still a lot of hard work ahead of us, but we now have a solid foundation to become a more sustainable company.†Brad Loiselle, President and CEO betterU.
Business Update – The following are additional updates on the business:
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Cancelled Shares for Debt – As
previously reported on July 26th, 2019 and November 29, 2019 as part of
ongoing efforts to reduce the Company’s debt and operational liabilities
that its board of directors had approved the settlement of $125,000 of
debt through the issuance of common shares of the Company (the “Debt
Settlement”). The Company had since decided not to move forward with the
Debt Settlement due to the downward pressure of the stock price and the
level of dilution it would have created. The Company continues to look
at debt reduction options.
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Board approved restructuring plan – On December 2, 2019
betterU’s board of directors approved a plan to restructure the
Company’s existing debts and liabilities in efforts to deleverage its
balance sheet. The restructuring would take place over the course of
2020 i n connection with a planned subordinated secured convertible
debenture offering and subsequent private equity placement to fund a
global rollout of the Company’s Enterprise SaaS skilling platform and
also convert or otherwise pay down the Company’s currently existing
liabilities to a sustainable level.
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betterU Enterprise SaaS Platform ‘Ready-To-Go’ – is
fully operational and has been showcased to multiple corporate clients
in Canada, USA, UK and India. The Company has begun contracting with
several enterprise users, which will be announced in the week to come.
betterU has built over the last several months a database from
interested parties of 400+ Directors of Learning and Development, VPs
and HR heads from companies around the world. To support such growing
demand the Company would first have to raise additional capital through
its planned subordinated secured debenture offering. For more details
about betterU’s recently launched Enterprise SaaS ‘Ready-To-Go’
platform, please visit https://readytogo.betteru.ca/
-
Partnerships – Adding to our existing content
partnerships encompassing tens of thousands of courses from 100+ of the
world’s leading online education and training providers, betterU has
been expanding its offering of assessment tools required to support
employers in determining their employee skill gaps. We are pleased to
announce the Company has entered a partnership with Cyprus firm Byrq to
support betterU’s Enterprise SaaS Platform for pre-hiring candidates.
With a proven I/O psychology framework that is scientifically validated
and EEOC compliant, betterU will now be able to measure cognitive skills
including numerical, verbal, problem solving and attention to detail as
well as 16 personality traits. betterU is also pleased to announce they
have entered a partnership with USA based firm eSkill, providing
betterU with access to 600+ assessments across job roles, subject base
and modular. This partnership enables betterU to support entire
departments and job roles across organizations in determining the skills
required per employee and mapping them to their skills on betterU’s
Enterprise SaaS Platform Ready-To-Go.
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Corporate Portal – betterU has developed and launched a corporate website https://corporate.betteru.ca/,
that provides access to more details about betterU’s history,
leadership, 2020 focus, Investor Relations and more information on the
Company’s ongoing activities. betterU’s corporate website will support
more visibility, transparency and access to current and relevant details
about how the business is moving forward. Please visit the site
regularly so that you are kept current.
-
Stock Option Grants – The following stock options were
issued to an insider on December 13th 2017, Positive Venture Group for
125,000 at an exercise price of $0.335 for a 5 year term, with 1/3rd
allowed to exercise on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd anniversary date.
- AGORA Internet Relations Corp. – The Company has issued the following number of shares in connection with settlement of $56,500 owed to Agoracom for marketing services according to the terms of the agreement disclosed on April 12, 2017.
| Marketing Services | Price per Share | Number of Shares | |||
| 15-Mar-17 | $11,300 | 0.45 | 25,111 | ||
| 15-Jun-17 | $11,300 | 0.57 | 19,824 | ||
| 15-Sep-17 | $11,300 | 0.38 | 29,736 | ||
| 15-Dec-17 | $11,300 | 0.38 | 29,736 | ||
| 15-Mar-18 | $11,300 | 0.79 | 14,303 | ||
| Total | $56,500 | 118,710 | |||
- Annual General Meeting (“AGMâ€) Notice – Take notice that the annual general meeting (the “Meetingâ€) of shareholders of betterU Education Corporation (the “Corporationâ€) will be held at 1 Hunt Club Rd, Ottawa, ON K1V 1B9 on Thursday May 28th, 2020 at 11:00 a.m. (Ottawa time) for the following purposes:
- To receive the financial statements of the Corporation for its fiscal year ended March 31st 2019 and the report of the auditor thereon;
- To elect directors of the Corporation for the ensuing year;
- To appoint an auditor of the Corporation for the ensuing year;
- To consider and if thought fit to pass, with or without variation, an ordinary resolution to approve the Corporation’s Stock Option Plan allowing the granting of up to 10% of the Corporation’s issued and outstanding common shares at any time; and
- To transact such other business as may properly come before the Meeting or any adjournment thereof.
The Corporation has elected to use the notice-and-access (“Notice-and-Accessâ€) provisions under National Instrument 54-101 Communications with Beneficial Owners of Securities of a Reporting Issuer and National Instrument 51-102 Continuous Disclosure Obligations to distribute Meeting materials to shareholders. Notice-and-Access is a new set of rules that allow issuers to post electronic versions of proxy-related materials on SEDAR and on one additional website, rather than mailing paper copies to shareholders. Shareholders have the right to request hard copies of any proxy-related materials posted online by the Corporation under Notice-and-Access.
Meeting materials, including the Circular, will be available under the Corporation’s profile at www.sedar.com and also at https://corporate.betteru.ca/ by April 29th 2020. The Corporation will provide to any shareholder, upon request to the Corporation’s transfer agent, a paper copy of the Circular and any financial statements or management discussion and analysis of the Corporation filed with the applicable securities regulatory authorities during the past year. In order to allow reasonable time for you to receive and review a paper copy of the Circular or other document prior to the proxy deadline, you should make your request for a paper copy by April 13th 2020.
A shareholder who is unable to attend the Meeting in person and who wishes to ensure that such shareholder’s shares will be voted at the Meeting is requested to complete, date and sign the form of proxy for the Meeting, or voting information form (“VIFâ€), and deliver the form of proxy, or VIF, in accordance with its instructions.
About betterU Education Corp.
betterU is an education-to-employment technology company offering an end-to-end solution leveraging business intelligence to automate skilling, reskilling and upskilling for companies operating on domestic and global scales.
betterU has integrated into its platform the content, technology and support for tailored skills assessments, learning pathways and training modules from 100+ of the world’s leading online education providers. betterU’s eco-system includes detailed job, skill, employer, and educational profiles spanning 3,000+ standardized jobs. betterU’s integrated platform is the most efficient solution to address evolving skilling challenges for employers and employees through the employment lifecycle from entry level to executive. We don’t sell content, we help build better people.
For more information, please visit https://corporate.betteru.ca/corporate-gov/
Contact:
Brad Loiselle, CEO
1-613-695-4100
betterU Education Corp.
Investor Relations
Email: [email protected]
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
