SAN FRANCISCO — Nov. 30, 2020 — Mursion, the industry leader in immersive virtual reality training for emotional intelligence in the workplace, today announced it has closed a $20 million Series B financing, led by Leeds Illuminate.
Mursion is at the forefront of training individuals to be more empathetic and emotionally adept via virtual reality simulations that feature immersive interactions with human-guided avatars. Organizations turn to Mursion for a safe place to practice human skills, such as emotional intelligence, adaptability, and resilience, in an authentic risk-free environment where the danger of harming the individual’s performance and company’s reputation is eliminated. By blending AI with live human interaction, Mursion offers a virtual environment for practicing critical human skills in a consistent, customizable, cost-effective way, at scale.
“Mursion’s extraordinary recent growth is evidence of the market need for an immersive and easily accessible platform to practice behaviors tied to strategic imperatives, across business, healthcare, government and education environments” according to Susan Cates, Managing Partner of Leeds Illuminate. “Mursion’s unique approach delivers measurable results and real impact for learners ranging from doctors to front-line managers to K12 teachers.”
With the global pandemic accelerating the shift towards virtual learning in the Fortune 1000, Mursion’s ability to provide challenging, immersive, hyper realistic simulations of challenging workplace conversations proved consequential. In 2020, Mursion deepened its existing partnerships with such top companies as T-Mobile, Coca-Cola, and LinkedIn and signed new deals with industry leaders like H&R Block, Indeed, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Johnson & Johnson. Clients in government, healthcare, higher education and business partner with Mursion to practice a wide range of skills including leadership development, conflict resolution, clinical reasoning, and sales. Many recent collaborations are centered on the implementation of immersive Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training that builds trust and supports courageous conversation between managers and their teams.
“Mursion was founded on the basis that human skills, such as the ability to give constructive feedback and to deescalate interpersonal conflicts are not merely “nice-to-have” capabilities in the workplace, they are paramount to an individual’s and an organization’s success,” said
Mursion CEO Mark Atkinson. “Numerous studies have proven that companies that build a mutually supportive culture at work show more growth in revenue.”
Mursion Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer Arjun Nagendran added: “Effectively combining the latest advancements in virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and human reasoning unlocks the potential to create human behavioral change. This change, afforded via Mursion’s immersive technology, will be at the heart of driving every organization’s productivity and impact in the next decade.”
This new funding caps a momentous year for Mursion, with highlights such as inclusion in Fast Company’s “World’s Most Innovative Companies 2020;” a multi-phased roll-out of intricate new software features, including photorealistic avatars and environments; enhanced learning analytics; and overwhelming demand for its trademark simulations that blend artificial intelligence and live human interaction.
About Mursion
Powered by a blend of artificial intelligence and live human interaction, Mursion provides immersive VR training for essential skills in the workplace. Mursion simulations are designed for the modern workforce, staging interactions between learners and avatars to achieve the realism needed for measurable, high-impact results. Drawing upon research in learning science and psychology, Mursion harnesses the best in technology and human interaction to deliver outcomes for both learners and organizations.
About Leeds Illuminate
Leeds Illuminate is a growth equity firm dedicated to partnering with exceptional management teams in high growth companies in education and workforce development. The Firm is committed to improving outcomes in education (pre-K through higher ed), workplace access and advancement. Together, Leeds Illuminate, with its focus on growth stage companies, and Leeds Equity Partners, with its focus on middle market buyouts, bring sector expertise and strategic insights to create long-term value for their partner companies and investors. Leeds Equity Partners was founded in 1993 and has deployed over $2.7 billion of capital across a broad spectrum of companies within the Knowledge Industries. For additional information on Leeds Illuminate, see Leeds Illuminate.
