LONDON — Feb. 6, 2023 — HowNow, a learning experience platform (LXP) that helps companies onboard, upskill and support employees faster everywhere they work, today announced a Series A $5 (£4) million investment by Mercia Asset Management and the world’s leading learning company, Pearson.
HowNow has transformed how scale-up companies including Depop, Vanmoof, Permutive, and Checkout.com and global enterprises like Mercer, Telenor, Sanofi and Investec connect time-poor employees with personalised learning opportunities, skills and shared knowledge. HowNow helps to resolve the very tangible problem of engagement in traditional Learning Management Systems (LMS) by bringing learning content into the flow of work, which results in customers experiencing engagement rates more than 5 times higher than the average.
Following initial seed funding two years ago from Fuel Ventures, Thames Trust, LearnStart and several entrepreneurs, operators and HR tech innovators, HowNow has doubled in revenue and onboarded over 100 organisations in more than 150 countries.
The investment from Mercia and Pearson Ventures is earmarked for further international expansion as well as bolstering the growing team. HowNow will also continue developing features that scale knowledge sharing, make it easier to measure impact and connect learning and skills into the overall employee experience.
Nelson Sivalingam, CEO and Co-founder at HowNow, said, “In the era of exponential change, equipping people with the knowledge and skills to be successful at what they do at speed is one of the biggest challenges we face. Without such continuous development, individuals and organisations risk becoming socially and economically obsolete. The traditional LMS is not fit for the demands of the modern workforce. With HowNow, we’re excited to be defining how people learn in this new world of work. We’re delighted to welcome Mercia and Pearson Ventures onboard as investors to help us hopefully build one of the most important companies of our time.”
Daniela Tsoneva, Investor at Mercia, said: “Daniela Tsoneva, Investor at Mercia, said: “We are excited to support Nelson and his team in their quest to transform workplace learning. HowNow’s dynamic matching technology ensures users receive the right learning content at the right time. The company is a pioneer in the relatively new but fast-growing learning experience sector and has the potential to become a market leader. The funding will help it expand its global footprint and continue its rapid growth trajectory.”
Pedro Vasconcellos, VP Pearson Ventures, said: “Pearson Ventures is pleased to join forces with HowNow, an exciting Workforce learning company, to support their growth and explore ways to work together. Their strategy to leverage data to enable the employee to take control of their learning experience and career development has interesting potential for the future of workforce learning.”
About HowNow
By using learning to drive business performance, organisations can engage, retain and develop their best people. HowNow brings all your learning and development into one place, connecting every employee with learning opportunities, skills and knowledge in the flow of work. Headquartered in the UK, HowNow’s learning experience platform is trusted by over 100 organisations in over 150 countries worldwide.
About Mercia Asset Management PLC
Mercia is a proactive venture capital investor that aims to be a start-up’s first-choice partner for growth. Mercia currently has c. £1.4 billion of assets under management and has invested in a portfolio of over 400 start-ups from pre-seed to Series B and beyond. Mercia has nine offices in the UK and over 60 investment professionals, all drawing on their experiences as founders, PhD scientists, software engineers, corporate financiers and management consultants to help our partner companies successfully achieve their ambitions.
Mercia’s venture funds sit alongside the Mercia Group’s wider private equity, debt and proprietary balance sheet capital, in order to provide a ‘Complete Connected Capital’ solution for our portfolio. Mercia Asset Management PLC is quoted on AIM with the epic “MERC”.
www.mercia.co.uk
About Pearson Ventures
Pearson Ventures is the corporate venture capital arm of Pearson, the world’s leading learning company. It invests in early-stage companies and entrepreneurs that are creating the future of education and lifelong learning.
