AARHUS, Denmark — April 26, 2023 — Pioneering learning management system LMS365, has raised $20 million in growth capital to fund its continued global expansion.
The investment was led by New York City-based Blue Cloud Ventures with participation from Kamet Capital and existing shareholders. Blue Cloud Ventures is a late-stage SaaS-focused venture capital fund with prior investments in several leading workforce management and learning software companies globally. As part of the funding, Mir Arif and Eric Guardiola of Blue Cloud Ventures will be joining the LMS365 board and Victor Yaw will be joining as a board observer.
LMS365’s user-centric learning management system is the only learning platform built into Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Viva and Microsoft365. With millions of users in 60+ countries, LMS365 enables some of the world’s leading organizations to effectively manage employee learning and training. Empowering employees with its element of ‘Learn Like You’ – i.e. allowing employees to learn in their familiar flow of work – has been key to LMS365’s success.
“Raising a round of this magnitude in the current climate is outstanding for the whole team and a testament to all the hard work put into getting to this point,” said Rasmus Holst, CEO of LMS365. “This capital injection represents a significant change in gear for our business. The decision by our CTO, Freddy Bang, to build on Teams in 2016 sparked a phenomenal growth journey, and now we are ready for the next chapter.”
“We are thrilled to partner with LMS365 and its management team,” said Mir Arif, Managing Partner of Blue Cloud Ventures. “We have tracked the LMS market for a long time and were impressed by the Microsoft Teams-native platform built by LMS365 which provides seamless deployment and ease of use for their customers.”
“We are very familiar with the Microsoft and LMS ecosystem and are strong believers in the unique and differentiated position that LMS365 has carved out in this large and growing market,” said Eric Guardiola, Principal at Blue Cloud Ventures.
LMS365 has grown organically through its tight integration with Microsoft, and by tapping into the global business need that COVID-19 highlighted – the ability to onboard, train and develop employees regardless of their location.
“We see a clear window of opportunity in the market where we can accelerate,” said Henrik Jeberg, Chief Strategy Officer of LMS365. “While we are proud of our growth rates, Microsoft Teams adoption has also grown fast, so we expect to continue to invest in our core market, and we also see Microsoft Viva as a clear opportunity.”
LMS365 expects to continue to grow geographically after successfully expanding its market access through the acquisition of distribution partners in the U.S., Germany and Australia. By focusing on adjacencies, LMS365 aims to offer additional functionality to customers and users. “We will use M&A strategically going forward, including in relation to product development,” added Henrik Jeberg.
LMS365 believes learning will only become more strategic for businesses in the future. Businesses expect that employees will take increasing control of their professional development – seeking knowledge in their own time for their personal career journey and to benefit their employer. Skills will continue to be a strong currency in the future job market.
About LMS365
At LMS365, we’re on a mission to place learning in the hands and hearts of people — empowering them to learn for life. Like no one else. As the only learning platform built into Microsoft 365 & Teams, we help millions of users within global organizations embrace the modern digital workplace and learn in their individual and familiar flow of work. Because we believe in putting people over platform. Today, with offices in Europe, Australia, and the US, we excite and enable users in 60+ countries to grow smarter. To unleash their full potential. To train, work, and learn like you. For more information, please visit www.lms365.com.
About Blue Cloud Ventures
Blue Cloud Ventures (BCV) is a software-focused later stage venture capital firm based in New York City. The fund targets investments in leading business application, infrastructure and open source software companies. Some of BCV’s past and present portfolio companies include Arctic Wolf Networks, Clari, Cloudbees, Druva, Go1, Iterable, NGINX, Templafy, Pax8 and Wrike. For more information on BCV and our portfolio companies, please visit www.bluecloudventures.com.
