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Gloucestershire Business News

Entrepreneur who sold his company for £140 million has a new business

An entrepreneur who created a successful financial advice website - and sold it for £140 million - has emerged with a new business venture.

After growing the business and famously spending £3 million converting a Cirencester castle into its eye-catching headquarters, Chris Morling sold Money.co.uk to the owners of Zoopla.

But it seems he can't keep away from the world of work, and is back with a new start-up called Studee, "aimed at transforming the way international students find their university abroad".

He has teamed up with best friend Simon Andrews, who he met in 2002 when they shared an office space in London.

Mr Andrew has worked in the global higher education sector for over 20 years, building the Big Choice Group - an international business, helping millions of young people with their careers.

Mr Morling, now chief executive officer of the pair's new venture, said: "Studee is reinventing the way international students find a university by making it simple and deeply personalised whilst adding transparency in an industry which in recent years has sadly suffered some corruption and has largely ignored the climate crisis.

"I believe education is the most powerful way to positively change the world but I'm also addressing the elephant in the room - the fact international education has negative consequences for our environment.

"So for every student we enrol, to contribute towards compensating the CO2 released when students fly to their chosen university, we'll pay for trees to be planted on their behalf.

"Our goal is to plant one million trees over the coming years and transform the way international students find their dream university abroad. Studee will grow up rapidly over the coming months, we're overflowing with ideas."

The duo has been working on the business idea for a year and based the new venture in Mr Morling's home town of Cirencester.

Studee has a multilingual team of NAFSA qualified advisors to speak to students, guiding them every step of the way from application to enrollment.

According to the business "the process of enrolling at a university for international students is outdated and not fit for purpose for today's centennials - a generation that has never known a world without the internet and who will bear the brunt of climate change".

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