London-based Learnerbly closes £1.6m Seed

London-based Learnerbly, a SaaS platform offering bespoke professional development, has raised £1.6m in a Seed round led by Frontline Ventures.

Other participants in the startup’s financing round included Playfair Capital, the Mayor of London’s Co-Investment Fund and Future Planet Capital.

Angel investors including Stephan Thoma, former global learning and development director at Google; Renaud Visage, co-founder of Eventbrite; Jason Stockwood, CEO at Simply Business; and Claire Davenport, CEO of HelloFresh UK; also participated.

Learnerbly was founded by prominent technology entrepreneur Rajeeb Dey MBE – also the CEO – who said: “Despite nearly $360bn being spent globally by businesses in 2016 on professional development, there is still a disconnect between spend, activity and impact.

“Learnerbly leverages expert insights and brings transparency to expenditure by continuously assessing the efficacy of all forms of learning activities. By placing our focus on the application rather than solely the acquisition of knowledge we are able to evaluate the impact of learning both for the employee and the business. We are creating a new category in the industry which we are calling a Development Management System.”

Dey previously set up Enternships, an online platform which connects students and graduates to relevant graduate jobs and internships. Enternships will be parent company for Learnerbly.

William McQuillan, partner at Frontline Ventures, concluded: “Millennials do not look at a job as a job for life, but instead as a stepping stone. Learning and development are therefore crucial to them when considering which employers they want to join or stay with.

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