INDIANAPOLIS — April 6, 2020 — Lessonly announced a $15 million Series C funding round led by AXA Venture Partners, with participation from Zendesk, Allos Ventures, Atlas Peak Capital, Rethink Education, and The Yard Ventures. The company’s online training platform makes it easy to build learning and practice scenarios in minutes, not weeks or months.
Lessonly’s unique focus on Better Work has influenced the training of over 3 million learners at over 1,000 companies—including Jostens, TrunkClub, HelloFresh, and SalesLoft. The company has also been rated the #1 corporate LMS on independent review sites like G2 and TrustRadius.
“I’m proud of our company and mission,” said Max Yoder, Lessonly’s CEO and co-founder. “And I am grateful to everyone who made this possible.”
In addition to its existing offerings, Learn and Practice, the company will launch Assess in mid-2020. Assess enables learners to demonstrate proficiency in existing skills and hone those that need improvement. This “skills engine” will guide learners to the lessons, practice scenarios, and certifications they need to advance in their careers and deliver greater value for businesses.
The Series C funding round was led by AXA Venture Partners, a global venture capital firm. “Lessonly’s easy to use software helps companies increase sales and delight their customers,” said Alex Scherbakovsky, General Partner and Lessonly board member. “We are proud to partner with Max and the Lessonly team to scale the company globally.”
Zendesk, a service-first CRM company, also participated in the Series C funding round. Lessonly integrates with the Zendesk platform, making training a seamless part of customer service and sales workflows.
“We are committed to investing in SaaS companies that empower their customers and users to ‘be their best’,” said Hilary Shirazi, director, corporate development, at Zendesk. “We are impressed with how Lessonly helps customer-facing employees excel at their craft and do better work each and every day. We look forward to furthering our support of an already great partner who is working to enhance customer experience for companies, and customers, everywhere.”
The company has found a strong foothold among the multi-billion dollar sales and customer service enablement industries by supporting revenue leaders who train thousands of reps every year via on-demand, remote, and live training—like Mark from Jostens.
“Lessonly was so user-friendly, right off the bat. It was so flexible and met our needs. Lessonly was interested in more than just delivering a platform,” said Mark Bussell of Jostens, “They were interested in partnering and walking along the way with us.”
The growing demand for training and enablement continues to fuel Lessonly’s rocket-ship growth. The team has more than tripled the number of “Lessonly llamas” (employees) and the number of users since their Series B funding in 2017. They also opened a brand-new, Indianapolis-based headquarters in summer 2019 to fuel continued growth. To learn more about Lessonly’s product, people, and culture, visit lessonly.com/series-c/.
About Lessonly
Lessonly is powerfully simple training software that helps teams learn, practice, and Do Better Work. We are used by 3 million learners at more than 1000 leading companies including Honeywell, Trunk Club, Jostens, and U.S. Cellular to power enablement, develop skills, and reinforce best practices. The result is faster onboarding, higher NPS scores, more closed deals, and a superior customer experience. Learn more at lessonly.com.
About AXA Venture Partners
AXA Venture Partners (AVP) is a venture capital firm investing in high-growth, technology-enabled companies. AVP has built, in less than 5 years, a unique investment platform specialized in tech investments with $800 million of assets under management (“AUM”) through three pillars of investment expertise: Early Stage, Growth Stage and Fund of Funds. To date, AVP has invested in more than 45 Early and Growth equity deals and more than 15 Funds. The AVP team operates globally with offices in San Francisco, New York, London, Paris and Hong Kong. Beyond investments, AVP provides unique access to business development opportunities helping portfolio companies to scale globally and accelerate their growth. Visit our website axavp.com.