SAN DIEGO — Nov. 3, 2021 — Defining the next generation of corporate learning experiences with a unique platform for people skills development, Hone has successfully raised $16 million USD in Series A financing. The round was led by F-Prime Capital with participation from Cowboy Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners, Slack Fund, Gaingels, Swift Ventures, and SemperVirens. The funding will be used to strengthen Hone’s platform capabilities for live online training and to build out Hone’s go-to-market team. As part of the round, John Lin of F-Prime Capital will join the board.
Hone’s platform combines the engagement and social interaction of the classroom with the scale and analytics of e-learning, where live online classes are now possible with the ubiquity of video conferencing. Initially focused on manager training, Hone’s lessons now also include people skills, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training for all employees. It marries the best of technology with the best of human engagement to give employees an effective and personalized learning experience that mirrors the way teams work today.
“Traditional corporate training is no longer practical in a world that has embraced remote and distributed work. Employees’ leadership, management and people skills are now more vital to a corporation’s success and retaining the best employees than ever before,” said John Lin, Investor at F-Prime Capital. “Hone’s product and team are well positioned to serve the vast number of companies looking to upskill employees skills that can’t always be learned in a single class, nor from pre-recorded videos alone. We’re excited to support their explosive growth and the positive impact they are having on the workplace through more engaging and effective corporate training.”
Research conducted by Training Industry reports the global corporate L&D market worth $360 billion. In the United States alone, the market is worth $165 billion. The industry has historically been dominated by two approaches: non-scalable and expensive classroom training and pre-recorded video libraries which often have low engagement and completion rates (~5-15%). With the continued shift toward remote work, companies are seeking effective methods to engage and educate its employees, allowing Hone to meet demand.
“At Hone, we believe that training should be a life-changing experience accessible to anyone, regardless of seniority or location. We are building a new kind of corporate learning experience to address the massive transformation of how modern teams work, ensuring a more productive, equitable, and human workplace.” Said Tom Griffiths, CEO of Hone. “We are thrilled to be partnering with the team at F-Prime, who share our and our existing investors’ vision of the future of learning at work.”
Hone generates transformational behavior change through live experiential science-backed classes on modern leadership, management and people skills, peer learning, and continuous reinforcement, while giving learning and development (L&D) and human resource (HR) leaders data-driven insights about the learning’s impact at scale. In the last 12 months, Hone has increased its customer base by 400 percent year-over-year and annual recurring revenue by 10 times in the last 12 months.
Delivering training to learners in more than 58 countries worldwide, Hone is transforming the way in which corporations teach leadership, management and people skills.
About Hone
Hone is the #1 Live Learning Platform for organizations to teach transformational leadership, management, and people skills at scale. We empower HR and Learning & Development teams to advance people development in a modern way, with easy deployment of small-group, live cohort learning at scale, and data and tools to measure its impact. Through a blend of live online cohort-based programs, world-class instructors, and a powerful behavior change platform, Hone cultivates soft skills with hard data, leading to lasting behavior change in 90% of learners who go through our programs. Hone has trained thousands of learners in 58+ countries, and serves a rapidly expanding list of clients including GoFundMe, Aramark, Rover, Grove Collaborative and more.
