Education and workplace training VC firm Emerge has closed $73 million for its oversubscribed global early-stage Fund II, backed by 100+ of the world's best future of work and learning operators.
The second fund more than triples the investment from its first, bringing Emerge's total assets under management to $100 million.
I spoke to Nic Newman, General Partner of Emerge, to find out more.
A way to democratise opportunity
As Europe's only edtech specialist fund, Emerge was founded to democratise access to opportunity. The company is focused on education and the future of workplace learning.
Newman contends:
"We believe that investing in founders who are revolutionising education and the future of work is the most impactful way to level the playing field."
Over the past decade, Emerge has invested in 80+ companies, empowering over 31 million people worldwide and generating a valuation of over $2 billion.
Newman sees AI as a great leveller in education and the future of work:
"A decade ago, edtech was largely driven by ex-teachers and folks with a background in learning and development, with probably an ok technical founder but a likely mixture of services and services and Saas.
"We know from Bloom's Taxonomy that anybody who gets one-to-one tutoring can achieve two or three times the learning outcome. But of course, that's unscalable. You can't do that in a classroom."
However, the company doesn't invest in "tutoring companies that cost $5,000 to $7000 per year "because that increases inequality."
Newman counters, "But when you've got a teacher or workplace coach with an AI-pilot that helps them prepare for and facilitate one-to-one learning, suddenly you're democratising access to individual help. And that's what we find really exciting."
"AI is creating huge opportunities in how we learn and navigate our career — because we're changing careers more often — and lastly, how we work and how we put AI at the centre of how we work better, more productively, and more happily."
Newman sees future investment priorities for the firm, including workplace talent assessment and selection and career navigation pathways, as well as support and transition in the shift out of roles displaced by AI.
Not your typical investors
Emerge's partners defy the conventional investor profile.
"Education was our escape," says Newman, whose father was a truck driver.
"I'm the first in my family to attend university."
Partners are immigrants, working-class kids and refugees, for whom education was the path to a better life.
A unique venture partner community
Emerge is a community-powered investor. Unlike other VCs, Emerge is supported by 100+ Venture Partners – operators who have built future of work and learning companies and providers, including the co-founders and CEOs of Udemy, Degreed, Trilogy, Beamery, Go1, Coursera, Busuu, Kahoot, Andela, Docebo and Springboard, as well as the CHROs and CLOs of Fortune500 companies such as Kraft Heinz, IBM, Boeing and McDonalds.
Newman shared:
"We don't mind you backing from the earlier stages. We want them to not worry about building at those initial Pre-Seed and Seed stages, and we don't invest in Series A because we've got so many relationships with series A people to help them raise their round."
At Emergy, Venture Partners engage with portfolio companies throughout their entire lifecycle, focusing on accelerating their journey to product-market fit and Series A and beyond.
They inform Emerge's market research, source deals, support the diligence process, co-invest as angels, become advisors to companies, and even join their boards and become customers.
More than half of the Venture Partner community is based in the US, powering Emerge's strategy to find the best founders in Europe and turbocharge their expansion into the US and global markets.
The closing of Fund II follows multiple successful exits for Emerge, including Zavvy's acquisition by Deel earlier this year. Numerous portfolio companies, including Edurino and Unibuddy, have also seen significant up-rounds.
Investments already out of Fund II include Colossyan, an AI video platform for workplace learning, which announced a $22M Series A with new investors.
Investors in Fund II include KfW Capital, Laerdal Invest, Jacobs Foundation and Southern New Hampshire University.
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