With a new year upon us, both learning and development (L&D) leaders and service providers are busy setting goals and putting strategic plans in place to achieve them.
As we plan for this year’s inevitable challenges — and opportunities — let’s take a moment to reflect on the deals that took place in the corporate training industry last quarter.
The Demand for Technical Training Continues
The information technology (IT) and technical training segment of the market has long been a thriving one. Due to rapid digital transformation and the widespread shift to remote and hybrid work, we expect the demand for technical training to continue to rise in the future.
According to Training Industry’s Trends 2023 Report, “Digital skills have quickly evolved from a nice-to-have skill set to a business necessity.” All employees need basic digital literacy skills to understand and apply technology and data to improve business processes, the report says.
Here are the deals we saw in this sector of the market last quarter:
- EdventureCo, the education platform of the investment firm Arowana, acquired Microsoft Application training provider Nexacu.
- Digital skills training provider Simplilearn secured $45 million in funding from a consortium led by GSV Ventures.
- In its second deal of the quarter, Simplilearn acquired Fullstack Academy, a U.S.-based tech bootcamp education company. According to the press release, “The acquisition will enhance Simplilearn’s scale and presence in the bootcamp space” and will drive revenue to $200 million by the fiscal year of 2024.
Measurement and Analytics Solutions Offer Support
Ongoing Training Industry research has found that diagnostics, the process of identifying business challenges and determining whether training is the best way to solve them, and reporting and analysis, the process of measuring and evaluating the business impact of learning interventions, are both essential for great training. However, identifying training needs and measuring training effectiveness are both notorious challenges for training managers.
Assessment and evaluation providers offer a breadth of solutions that support training professionals in both of these areas by providing greater insight into learner analytics across the workforce and simplifying the hard work of determining the return on investment (ROI) of training.
Learning Technologies
The learning technology sector of the market saw three deals last quarter:
- CLASSUM, an online learning platform for corporations and universities, secured $11 million in pre-Series B funding. The investment was led by venture capital firm Dunamu & Partners.
- Beeline, a leading technology solution provider for managing the global extended workforce, announced the acquisition of Utmost, a next-generation extended workforce solutions company.
- Instructure announced that it completed the acquisition of LearnPlatform, a leading provider of technology that enables educators and their institutions to research, select and evaluate digital learning solutions.
Workforce Development
The workforce development segment of the market also saw three deals last quarter, the first two of which reflect the ongoing need for solutions designed to elevate the employee experience:
- Leading employee experience platform LumApps announced the acquisition of Vizir, a no-code digital assistant technology.
- Beamery, a leader in talent lifecycle management announced a $50 million Series D funding round, bringing the company’s valuation to over $1 billion.
- The Pharmacy Technician Certification Board, the first and only non-profit association for pharmacy technician credentialing in the U.S., announced the acquisition of the Pharmacy Technician Educators’ Council to enhance the resources and development opportunities available to the pharmacy technician workforce.
- Axcel, a professional education business backed by Apline Investors, acquired EduMind, a global education and training provider specializing in professional exam preparation.
Content Development
In the content development sector of the market:
- NIIT Limited (NIIT), a global talent development corporation and leading provider of managed training services, signed a definitive agreement to invest $2 million growth capital in KNOWLSKAPE Solutions PTE.LTD, a provider of a leading experiential learning platform.
- Genius Group Limited, a leading entrepreneur ed-tech and education provider, announced that it will acquire Revealed Films, Inc., a media production company that specializes in multi-part documentaries. The transaction is valued at $10 million, with earnout and claw back payments in 2023, 2024 and 2025 that are contingent on meeting certain revenue and profitability criteria.
Other Deals by Topic Area
Compliance
- HSI, a leader in environmental, health and safety, compliance and professional development solutions, announced the acquisition of SafetySkills, an eLearning provider.
Learning Services/Outsourcing
- In November 2022, NIIT announced that it had acquired 100% membership interest in St. Charles Consulting Group LLC through its wholly owned subsidiary, NIIT (USA) Inc., its second deal of the quarter.
Performance Management
- 15Five, a holistic performance management company, announced a strategic investment of an undisclosed amount from ServiceNow. The investment follows the company’s $52 million Series C round it announced in July 2022.
What are your predictions for the corporate training market in 2023? Email us at editor@trainingindustry.com to share your thoughts.
