Owl Ventures and Founders Circle Capital join existing investors in fueling the next stage of growth for Degreed, the leader in lifelong learning and skills development. Degreed will use the funds to redefine how people and companies build and certify skills.
SAN FRANCISCO, March 06, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Degreed, the world’s career-long learning platform, today announced new executive roles for David Blake and Chris McCarthy, along with raising $42 million in a Series C funding round co-led by Owl Ventures, a fund that invests in the world's leading education technology companies, and Jump Capital. Founders Circle Capital, along with existing investors, GSV Acceleration Fund and Signal Peak Ventures, also participated in this round.
Degreed’s latest round of funding comes after three consecutive years of 100% revenue growth. In the last six months alone, nearly 50 new clients, representing 1 million licensed users and tens of millions of dollars of contract value, have signed-on with Degreed. These include Unilever, Cisco, Kia Motors, Marsh & McLennan, Schlumberger, Booz Allen Hamilton, AthenaHealth, The Bank of Montreal, Prudential Financial, and Hyatt Hotels.
“We are starting 2018 with incredible momentum, and we are excited to work with some of the world’s most innovative learning leaders,” said David Blake, Degreed Executive Chairman. “Chris and I couldn’t be more excited for the next chapter of Degreed’s growth—helping our clients’ CEOs and employees to invent and adopt new, data-driven ways to upskill, certify, and unlock their next opportunities.”
The funding will fuel commercialization of Degreed’s newest product, Skill Certification, the world’s first system to both certify and rate any skill. To guide those efforts, Blake, Degreed’s co-founder, has taken on a new role as Executive Chairman. Blake and the Degreed board named Chris McCarthy, formerly Chief Operating Officer, as the company’s new CEO, to lead the continued growth of the company and its award-winning learning platform.
“Keeping people’s skills in sync with fast-changing markets is the biggest challenge of our time,” said Chris McCarthy, Degreed CEO. “That’s why Degreed exists. We believe there’s a better, smarter way to help everyone keep their skills sharp for whatever’s next, to measure their progress as they grow, and to communicate their readiness—both to current and future employers.”
Proceeds from the capital raise will also be used to expand Degreed’s global sales force, and further grow its design, engineering and client service teams. Degreed, which already leads the market in its data science capabilities, will also build out its machine learning and analytics to drive deeper insights into clients’ and end-users’ skills-sets and development needs.
“Our people are our competitive advantage and Degreed is further optimizing the way that we address current skills and development needs in the short term, and how that will translate to performance as part of our longer-term strategy,” said Sarice Plate, Xilinx Senior Director of Global Talent Acquisition and Development. “Our learners are no longer having to guess at what's quality or what might benefit them.”
Including this latest infusion of capital, Degreed has raised a total of $75 million to-date.
About Degreed
Degreed is a better, smarter way to discover, learn and certify the skills you need for the future. Degreed connects all the resources people use to learn and grow, including corporate learning systems and millions of courses, videos, books, articles, podcasts, and subject experts from thousands of sources. Then we add data science and machine learning to provide people and businesses with the tools, analytics and feedback they need to stay ready for whatever’s next. Founded in 2012, Degreed is headquartered in San Francisco, with additional offices in Salt Lake City and Amsterdam.
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Media Contacts:
Jocelyn Shaw
PR Manager, Degreed
jshaw@degreed.com