Welcome back to The View. It’s been a while, as a reminder, my name’s Gordon MacRae. I used to write about Bootcamps but I’m expanding the scope of this newsletter because it turns out there’s only so many times you can write about bootcamps. And that number was twelve.
Going forward, I’m going to write about fundraising and new products launches. I'm going beyond bootcamps because following the money tells us more about the future of learning than any press release ever will.
Bear with me while I blow off the cobwebs and figure out how to write again.
Let’s get into it.
Squeezing AI into every pitch deck
Earlier this month, I went along to the Learning Technologies in London. The conference was an audio and visual overload. Real estate was king. The top vendors all vying for space in the middle of the conference. Like a domineering corporate squash enthusiast who wants everyone to pivot around them in the middle of the court.
If we use that logic to see the status games on show then Sana Labs is the clear alpha. With one, large, simple screen displaying their corporate logo on repeat and a flotilla of busy sales reps engaging every passer-by in small talk. Meanwhile, Coursera, Pluralsight and Docebo skulk on the fringes.
As I walk into the conference, one vendor is serving espresso martinis, another is giving out house plants, but everyone is selling AI layered on top of corporate learning platforms.
In a corner, I walk past HR-sage, Josh Bersin. He asks the audience how many people dreamed of being in HR and learning technologies. Only a handful of people raise their hands. “I guess everyone else fell into it,” says Josh.
AI is clearly the belle of the ball here. Every LMS provider has a roadmap with “AI” threaded throughout. AI Agents dominate every conversation. Every vendor seems to hawk new AI tools that promise to build text, video and audio courses instantly. But beneath the buzz, I find only Dr Phillipa Hardman has anything sensible to say.
“They are all selling a process that is mostly broken,” she writes after the conference. Only 12% of workplace training has a measurable impact on learners and the business. That means 88% of what L&D produces today has no meaningful effect.
She argues, the biggest risk of AI in L&D is that we might use it to scale a fundamentally broken system.
Truth.
On to the funding.
🌱 Seed Rounds: The Hope Will Get You
In the tutor-space, Revision Dojo raised $3.4 million to help students prep for exams. I guess this means a can of Red Bull and a high-bpm house mix now counts as a “retro” approach to exams. Old school. Medly grabbed $1.7 million to unleash AI tutors on GCSE and A-level students in the UK. And Evolytes secured €1.3 million to teach elementary math.
Getting your first job is a tough world. Vizzy wants to help out early-career candidates stand out amidst AI screening tools. They recently secured £3.6 million funding to build a platform which allows students to share their personality type, videos and other creative assets.
In the AI teaching assistant space, Y Combinator grads GradeWiz raised $500k to replace teaching assistants by doing grading and assessment. Also in the recent cohort of Y Combinator companies, Scout raised $500k for an "AI-powered student information system" (because regular databases are so 2015). Excellence AI also grabbed $500k to help Canadian students with math and science. And Short Answer secured $20k to "build better K12 writers".
Over in the talent assessment space, Ropes snagged $3.1 million to "transform how engineering talent is evaluated".
I’m filing these next few under “misc”. ArtMaster nabbed €800k in seed money to launch and develop Artie, their AI music teacher app. They initially focused on piano but other instruments and singing are now available. Rock on, Wayne. Workspace platform Delos raised $2.5 million to build the "next AI-native Microsoft Office suite" in France. And Wonder pre-seeded €2.6 million for their AI-native creative studio. I’m still not sure what “AI-native” means. It kindof sounds like a bedbug infestation.
Finally, Enverson raised a seed round to build out their language learning app. I’m not sure how these smaller companies will compete with Duolingo’s new AI-first approach. On verra.
🚀 Series A & Scale-ups
Moving up the funding ladder, doinstruct snagged €16.5 million to help compliance training for frontline workers. It’s not glamorous but somebody has to do it.
I’m pretty sure Pistachio is the name of my neighbour’s new Cockapoo puppy. But apparently it’s also the name of a Norwegian cybersecurity startup. They just raised $7 million for expansion and hiring. Also in the skills space, Female Invest raised $11 million funds to teach women financial literacy. They have 73,000 paying members across 123 countries, apparently.
Teal want to help people with their job search. They have what amounts to a content management system for finding a job. They recently raised $7.5 million to help scale it up.
Meanwhile, REMATIQ secured €5.4 million to “transform MedTech compliance with AI”. This means navigating R&D bureaucracy. You did ask. Also in healthcare education, Ingenix raised $9 million for a "generative AI co-pilot for clinical development".
On the skills development side, Klara raised €10 million “to structure and industrialise skills development at scale”. Which means they will help you know what your employees are good at doing. And then improve those people.
Certiverse is creating the “future of exams” which is not a sentence I ever thought I’d write. They raised $11 million to help create certificates and exams faster.
Brisk got $15 million in funding to help teachers uncover when students have used AI on assignments. Damn.
Enko Education reached Series B status with a $24 million round. Aimed at expanding their network of African schools. While Campus grabbed $23 million in Series B funds for their online alternative to community college.
Amboss hit $32 million in the Series C funding for their skills programme to teach healthcare professionals. The new funding will allow for international expansion. While Leap raised a $65 million Series E round. They offer counselling services, visa services, education loans, and other modern financial products and solutions tailored for international students.
Notice how the biggest check went to a company helping international students navigate systems, not actually improving learning…
🏰 Product Release Notes
It’s not all upstarts and scale-ups. A number of bigger companies also announced a slew of new product features recently. Canva released Visual Suite 2.0 which includes AI design tools, data visualisation tools and photo editing. Thrive Learning unveiled "Kiki", their new AI assistant to surface content and relevant resources across their platform, and speechMaker added collaboration features to their text-to-speech tools.
Pandemic-darlings, mmhhmm released a new video product called “Airtime”. The product includes two related tools: a virtual camera that helps you appear more polished on video calls, and a presentation tool that allows you and your colleagues to appear on screen as your present your slides.
Rise Up released an AI coach / agent tool called “Memorisation” to help with spaced learning. While Docebo have updated their AI coach to focus on creating course content and coaching learners.
Finally, HowNow launched a new AI Agent which apparently adapts to the individual learner. While Brinx.ai introduced an AI Course Creation tool (because who needs human teachers anyway?).
Until next time.