Lambda School shakes its brand with a new name – TechCrunch

Lambda School, an animated coding bootcamp that has landed more than $ 122 million in venture capital known to date, is changing its name to Bloom Institute of Technology, according to a blog post by CEO Austen Allred.

The company is also updating its tuition payment options to introduce an outcome-based loan. The financing instrument allows students to take out a loan with zero dollars upfront and then get 110% of their tuition reimbursement, including fees and interest from an approved lender, if they are unable to find a job within the next year. A student is only eligible for the refund if they apply for 10 jobs, network with 10 professionals, and post at least 5 GitHub contributions to their public GitHub profile per week, for 46 of the 52 weeks in a year.

To apply for an outcome-based loan, a student must be a U.S. citizen, permanent resident, or DACA beneficiary with an established credit history and no outstanding student loan defaults. In addition, temporary residents can apply for a loan with a co-signer who meets these criteria. At this point, the outcome-based loan is not available if a student lives in California. The move means Bloom will go beyond the original vision of expanding revenue sharing agreements, the controversial fundraising vehicle he pioneered. ISAs will continue to be optional, with some modifications.

Change at Lambda has seemed inevitable for a long time. Almost a year after his last layoff, Lambda School announced further cuts in April as part of a larger restructuring. Then Allred admitted that it had been difficult to make his business vision work.

“We have been working for years to make incentive aligned education work,” Allred tweeted in August. “It’s more difficult than we initially thought; we had to invent a lot of things from scratch simultaneously and we have to get a lot of things perfectly.

Lambda’s rebranding comes after years of scrutiny by former students and educators on the effectiveness of its education. More recently, freelance journalist Vincent Woo published an article alleging that Lambda inflates its placement rates and then markets them to enthusiastic students. The company is also facing legal action from three former students alleging deceptive financial and educational practices.

The name change could thus get rid of some of the baggage that the bootcamp has clung to (and help it attract more students).

“Whichever option you choose, you will be signing legally binding documents that will affect your finances,” the BloomTech website states. “We will do everything we can to help you feel confident in your decision. Focusing more explicitly on outcomes-based education puts Bloom in the same bucket as other bootcamps that see accreditation as a future path (plus the institutional sounding name doesn’t hurt either. more).

Ultimately, Lambda School was one of the most well-known coding bootcamps, with a strong flurry of “Lambda for X” competitors such as Henry and Microverse. Other companies also offer ISAs, such as Pursuit, V School, Launch School, and the Grace Hopper program. Lambda’s name recognition has helped it become somewhat of a synonym for the startup-fueled bootcamp market. With today’s news, it will have to rebuild the notoriety of its customers alongside its sales pitch to increase customer loyalty.

BloomTech has yet to respond to TechCrunch’s requests for further comment.