Proven Tech Investor OpenView Leads Series A Investment
INDIANAPOLIS (March 29, 2016) – Lessonly, the leader in learning automation software, today announced a $5 million Series A funding round led by OpenView, with participation from High Alpha Capital and Allos Ventures. The capital will be used to fuel hiring and product innovation. Lessonly currently serves more than 250 customers including brands like Intuit Workforce, Trunk Club, Gusto, Thumbtack, NBC News and MSNBC.
“In 2013 our first client created their first lesson, and today more than 200,000 employees are learning with Lessonly,” said Max Yoder, Lessonly’s co-founder and CEO. “This investment brings the capital and expertise we need to accelerate our learner-first technology and aggressively pursue our mission of helping people do better work so they can live better lives.”
Lessonly’s web-based software centralizes the tribal knowledge employees depend on and presents it as step-by-step lessons that include quizzes and feedback loops to measure engagement and promote retention. Employees are able to complete assignments, search for best practices, and request additional learning content from any device.
“Unlike traditional learning software, Lessonly does not require a dedicated learning and development department to create lessons,” Yoder said. “More than eighty percent of lessons are created by employees who do not have backgrounds in learning and development.”
“Lessonly’s flexibility and automation API made it the only choice for our sales teams’ learning needs,” said Teresa Ferguson, Trunk Club’s director of training. “Lessonly integrates with our CRM and product catalog, allowing us to use business data to drive the right learning at the right time. The result is more engagement, retention, and better sales quota attainment. Plus, their customer experience is outstanding.”
Ricky Pelletier, Partner at OpenView, will be joining the Lessonly Board of Directors. “One of the greatest challenges companies face as they grow and scale is ensuring their employees have the information and context needed to be successful in their jobs,” said Pelletier. “Max and the Lessonly team have created a powerful solution that overcomes the challenge of employee learning by democratizing and automating the process. The entire OpenView team is thrilled to take part in this next chapter of Lesson.ly’s success.”
The global corporate eLearning market is expected to reach more than $31 billion by 2020, according to research firm Technavio. In the U.S. alone, there are more than 500,000 companies between 20 and 500 employees – a market Yoder said Lessonly is built to serve.
“We believe that learning automation, the field Lessonly is helping to pioneer, is poised to grow into an enormous industry,” said Mike Fitzgerald, a Lessonly board member and partner at High Alpha. “The High Alpha partners have worked closely with Max and the Lessonly team since the business was founded. We believe Lessonly is uniquely positioned to be a market leader and we couldn’t be more excited to help support their future growth.”
Prior to today’s funding news, Lessonly released key product enhancements including next-generation knowledge base tools, comprehensive lesson search, and a completely redesigned user interface. Interested parties can learn more about Lessonly here.
