Articulate touts on its web site, “We make the world’s most popular apps for online training”. They are not exaggerating. Their bragging rights include over 106,000 organizations worldwide that use their online training tools and e-learning authoring apps—which in turn have helped over 112 million learners in 161 countries gain new skills.
Articulate’s market success is impressive, so it is not surprising that they just closed one of the largest Series A rounds ever of $1.5 billion, led by growth equity firm General Atlantic and joined by Blackstone Growth and ICONIQ Growth. Truly amazing is Articulate achieving that milestone without any prior institutional funding.
“It’s rare that a company achieves the level of success Articulate has without any prior institutional backing,” said Anton Levy, Co-President and Global Head of Technology Investing at General Atlantic. “On key measures including industry leadership, transformative technology, customer NPS, employee happiness, and sustained growth, Articulate has established itself as a leader and innovator”.
Now valued at $3.75 billion, solidly unicorn status, Articulate is poised to scale globally with its recent funding. Founder and CEO Adam Schwartz bootstrapped the venture after its launch in 2002 and now helms a venture that is flush with capital to attain even higher goals.
“We’re partnering with the growth equity firms we’re convinced will help us have an even greater impact in the world,” said Schwartz. “Companies face a whole host of challenges training employees in remote and hybrid work environments and reskilling their work forces post-COVID. They’re also under increasing pressure to build learning cultures that treat employees as whole humans, democratize learning creation and consumption, and reduce turnover through enhanced engagement.”
Articulate’s software works for both enterprise companies and small-to-medium sized businesses. Global clients include L’Oréal and Nestlé, among others that have collectively created millions of training courses using Articulate’s software. TrustRadius named it 2021’s seventh most loved product in the world.
Just over a year ago Articulate launched Rise.com, an all-in-one system that makes online training easy to create, enjoyable to take, and simple to manage. Their E-Learning Heroes Community now is approaching one million members and is the largest and fastest-growing community in the training industry.
Training and skill building are core for any business to grow. Articulate is explicit in their commitment to having a role in building human-centered organizations and provide the best value to customers and do right by employees. The company is deeply focused on sustaining a workplace where everyone feels empowered, valued, and safe to be their whole selves at work that Lucy Suros, President of Articulate, has expressed.
“We strategically selected General Atlantic, Blackstone, and ICONIQ Growth as investors for their combined strengths, including deep operational expertise, proven experience growing cloud-based SaaS companies, and an extensive network of resources to help us scale rapidly. Moreover, all three partners support our passionate commitment to building a human-centered organization.”
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