360Learning, a rising star in the world of corporate collaborative learning, just announced that it raised $200 million in fresh funding, marking yet another major investment in the booming edtech space. The growth round was led by Sumeru Equity Partners, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Silver Lake Waterman, and will be used to fuel its international expansion and global hiring spree. The startup currently has dozens of open tech positions at its office in NYC.
As its name would suggest, 360Learning lets companies make customizable courses to train their employees. They can mix and match media, and then distribute these courses company-wide or to individual groups depending on the subject. By focusing on collaborative learning specifically, CEO and founder Nick Hernandez says 360Learning is able to “radically” change how people learn in the workplace.
“Our engagement figures show that with the right learning approach and technology, [learning and development] becomes a driver of growth. Learners take control of their own learning and their companies thrive and lead in the new hybrid work environment,” he said in a statement.
About 1,500 companies use 360Learning, according to the company, including major brands like Aircall and Toyota. They use the platform for everything from employee onboarding to software training, with the aim of helping employees cultivate better sales, leadership and soft skills.
More broadly, 360Learning sits at the intersection of several major shifts in the world of work and education. As more and more baby boomers retire from their positions, companies are scrambling to figure out a way to retain that institutional knowledge and pass it on to their younger employees. Plus, the rise of virtual learning brought on by the pandemic has meant much of this learning has to be done online — hence the rapid growth of the edtech industry.
In fact, this new investment is the latest of many mega-rounds in the larger edtech space. Just a couple months ago, global upskilling startup Emeritus quadrupled its valuation after raising a massive $650 million round (also led by SoftBank), and the entire industry is expected to be worth about $106 billion by the end of this year.
Meanwhile, Sumeru co-founders Sanjeet Mitra and George Kadifa said in a joint statement that 360Learning’s focus on employee learning and development will be the “single most important factor for enterprises in the next 25 years.” And Paul Davison, a senior investor at SoftBank, seems to agree.
“360Learning places collaboration at the heart of the learning experience with personalized courses, decentralized creation and adaptive delivery. The platform draws out the best knowledge and experience from every corner of an enterprise, which boosts employee use and transforms engagement levels,” Davison said in a statement. “We believe the accelerating evolution of the workforce towards remote and distributed teams places an imperative on all companies to rethink how they train, upskill and retain employees more effectively.”
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