AMSTERDAM — Dec. 16, 2021 — Lepaya, a leading provider of power skills training that combines online and offline learning, today announced a $40 million Series B investment, one of the largest financing rounds to date for an education technology company in Europe. The round was led by Target Global, and joined by Noor van Boven (formerly N26), Anna Brandt (formerly Mollie), entrepreneurs Jordy Kool (Urban Gym) and Chris Zadeh (formerly Ohpen), as well as existing investors Mediahuis Ventures and Tablomonto.
The recent funding brings the total capital raised to $47 million. With this investment, Lepaya will continue to drive its mission to make multinational corporations and fast-growing companies more productive by upskilling their workforce. This will ultimately help companies close the skill gap of their workforce in a rapidly changing labor market.
Lepaya is positioned in the global training and development sector with a market size of $370 billion which has been further accelerated by the pandemic. By 2025, it is estimated that around 50 percent of all employees globally will need to be upskilled. As a consequence, companies shift investment in talent to the core of business strategy to provide their workforce with the necessary skills.
Founded in 2018 by René Janssen and Peter Kuperus, Lepaya aims to fill the skill gaps of the workforce by empowering professionals worldwide to be more effective in their ways of working. To capture the market opportunity, Lepaya plans to significantly expand its offline and online training offering. The company will deepen the personalization of its training programs, drive the integration of the learning experience into office productivity systems to facilitate impactful and easy-to-access training in a remote setting, and measure existing skill gaps and the corporate impact of closing these.
In addition, the funding will help Lepaya continue to grow its international presence and accelerate its strong momentum across all markets, further consolidating the EdTech market in 2022 with targets in Germany, the Nordics, and the UK. To date, Lepaya is already active across the globe with local offices in Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Berlin and Munich (Germany), Stockholm (Sweden), and London (UK). Lepaya will scale its international team further, doubling its headcount to 200 employees in the coming year.
René Janssen, CEO and co-founder of Lepaya: “With the labor market undergoing rapid change, organizations face a huge skill gap. The lack of upskilling options is one of the top three reasons employees want to leave the company they are working for. At the same time, leaders need to understand and train for the challenges of the 21st century including remote work and empower their employees to grow. They must transform their workforce to drive productivity and growth as well as mitigate employee attrition. Lepaya anticipates this shift by providing training for power skills that make employees fit for the future of work. The investment showcases the immense potential of education technology, helping companies build a culture of learning and development.”
Lepaya believes that providing the right training, at the right time, and focused on the right skill, makes corporations more productive. The company has built a mobile learning app which allows companies across all industries to tailor training to an employees’ and executives’ needs and career path. Lepaya combines over 50 soft and hard skill training modules into effective power skill development programs, offering learning interventions, and real-time data on learner behavior and impact. Lepaya’s services are integrated with Microsoft Teams and Slack, reducing classroom time by 50 percent. The company’s learning approach encourages employees to apply their learnings, upskilling a company’s workforce for strong and sustainable business performance and growth.
Peter Kuperus, Managing Director and co-founder of Lepaya: “We are excited to partner with Target Global. The strong interest of leading investors validates and reinforces Lepaya’s approach to preparing organizations and their workforce for the future of work. We will use the fresh funding to accelerate market consolidation in 2022, further develop our offline and online training offering, expand across Europe, and double our team size. We expect this to accelerate organic and inorganic growth, helping us to progress towards our goal to become the European market leader for upskilling.”
Bao-Y Van Cong, Investment Director at Target Global: “We are excited to make our second investment in the BeNeLux region this year; and are pleased to partner with Lepaya at this exciting moment in their growth journey and support its growth initiatives to upskill the global workforce. With the European EdTech market still lagging behind the US and China, we believe there is an immense growth potential for Lepaya. The company’s international scale creates even more opportunity for the business going forward, with Lepaya planning to consolidate the market further in 2022.”
Cédric Cops, Investment Lead at Mediahuis Ventures: “Mediahuis is proud to double down on Lepaya as the company accelerates growth across Europe. Ever since we partnered with René and Peter, we have seen Lepaya build an incredibly effective upskilling platform, empowering thousands of professionals — as well as our own Mediahuis team — to be more effective at work. The solution is both incredibly scalable and focused on measuring training impact, allowing large organizations to upskill huge pools of employees across the globe.”
The funding follows a remarkable year for Lepaya with tripling revenue in 2021 and anticipating continued expansion in the year ahead. Already more than 150 clients rely on Lepaya’s services, including Microsoft, L’Oréal, Takeaway, Hellofresh, Mollie, Flink, and KPMG. To be best equipped to face ever growing market demand and opportunity, Lepaya will continue to take advantage of strategic growth opportunities via acquisitions. In 2020, the company acquired Smartenup, a training company that supports professionals to work better, faster, and smarter with data.
About Lepaya
Lepaya is a provider of Power Skills training that combines online and offline learning. Founded by René Janssen and Peter Kuperus in 2018 with the perspective that the right training, at the right time, focused on the right skill, makes organizations more productive. Lepaya has trained thousands of employees.
As a challenger in a crowded training market, Lepaya responds to the needs of Europe’s fastest growing tech companies, such as Mollie, Takeaway, and Picnic, amongst others. By combining hard skills with soft skills, offered together as Power Skills, the Amsterdam-based company is growing faster in a market in which the demand for reskilling and upskilling continues to increase all over the world.
In 2020, Lepaya independently acquired Smartenup, a training company that supports professionals to work better, faster, and smarter with data. The scale-up focuses on the Dutch, Belgian, German, and Swedish markets and serves its customers worldwide. Lepaya is backed by Target Global, Mediahuis Ventures, and Tablomonto. The company has raised USD 47 million to date.
About Target Global
Target Global is an international investment firm headquartered in Berlin, with €3bn+ in AuM. With offices in Berlin, London, Tel Aviv, Barcelona and Cyprus, we connect the key European startup ecosystems and leverage the unique DNA of each of our target geographies, across our global network. Building on our experienced team with substantial operational and investment experience, we help exceptional entrepreneurs to build market leaders. Target Global invests across multiple stages, investing in fast-growing tech companies, targeting trillion € markets. Our Partners have been investing for more than 15 years in the digital technology space, backing some of the key European success stories. The Target Global portfolio includes companies such as Auto1, Copper, Delivery Hero, Docplanner, Flink, Rapyd, Revolut, TravelPerk, WeFox, and Zego.
About Mediahuis Ventures
As a corporate venture capital firm, Mediahuis Ventures is committed to funding high-growth, cutting-edge start-ups that are leveraging emerging technologies for students and the modern workforce. Mediahuis Ventures has a track record of successful investments in disruptive technology-driven companies, including Lepaya, MySkillCamp, and Bunch. Mediahuis Ventures is a subsidiary of European media group Mediahuis, one of the leading media groups in Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland and Luxembourg. With about 4,300 employees, Mediahuis has an annual turnover of approximately €1 billion. Since its creation in 2013, Mediahuis has built a highly diversified portfolio of news media, marketplaces and digital brands.
