Verdane, the Nordic investment firm helping successful tech companies scale faster, invests €10 million in Studytube, by which they secure a significant minority stake in the Dutch online learning platform. “This initial investment and our newfound partnership with Verdane will help us realise our ambition to become a top player in the European Learning & Development market”, says Homam Karimi, Studytube’s CEO.
Studytube provides companies and governments with an all-in-one learning platform. The technology enables organisations to create and distribute bespoke training content , and the accompanying proprietary online academy offers employees guided and inspirational access to a vast catalogue of third party training and educational programs (both offline and online). Build-in management tools smartly monitor employee development: what are relevant training courses for which employees; are they attending them; and have they obtained compulsory training certificates yet? The Studytube platform shares these insights instantly.
Studytube is not merely a smart SaaS platform, but functions as a training intermediary as well. As such it offers an inspiring search environment for (online) training, skill development and other educational offerings. Studytube has automated the entire procurement process with over 1.000 educational companies. This helps organizations to significantly reduce time spent on searching, booking, coordinating, invoicing and evaluating training and education. Organizations can save money as well, because Studytube realises purchasing discounts with all affiliated training providers, like LOI, NIMA, De Baak of VCA Nederland.
Around 10 million euros’ worth of training courses were booked in 2020 year-to-date, realising over € 1 million in cumulative discount value for Studytube clients. Studytube realised a turnover growth of 755 percent during the past 4 years. Over the past 3 years, the learning platform consistently ranked in the top 20 of the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 – ranking the 50 fastest growing technology companies in the Netherlands. Currently, Studytube is used by more than 200 organisations with a total of 500,000 employees. Clients include VolkerWessels, Manpower, ASR, Adecco, Port of Rotterdam, the Province of Gelderland and numerous municipalities, including the municipality of Groningen.
Homam Karimi, CEO of Studytube: “We believe the best product is the key-driver for continuing our exponential growth. That’s why we continue to invest in our people, in product development and we want to expand and optimize our training and education catalogue of third party training providers. This is the right moment for us to bring in Verdane as an investor and partner. Verdane invests in over 40 tech companies; a number of human capital software companies included; we can learn a lot from Verdane’s experience with them. With Verdane as a partner, we have access to subsequent investments for possible acquisitions, in order to realise our international ambition to become a top 3 player in the European Learning & Development market.”
Iikka Moilanen, responsible for the Studytube investment at Verdane: “A convincing proposition and innovative technology helped Studytube to generate impressive traction in The Netherlands. The fact that innovation is in Studytube’s DNA and the product is relatively easy to scale made us confident to be able to continue this traction into Europe. In these ever-changing times, companies need to stay up to date continuously and employee development is of paramount importance in doing so. With the Studytube learning platform, this can be done much more efficiently, easier and cheaper”.
About Studytube
Studytube offers organizations an all-in-one Learning Platform that inspires and facilitates the development of employees. Studytube helps both employees and organizations to stay relevant in our ever-changing times: ‘designed with your future in mind’. The learning platform functions as a proprietary online academy and offers access to over 50,000 learning interventions, from so-called online micro-learnings and skills training to classroom training at one of the 1,000 affiliated training companies such as LOI, NIMA or De Baak. Currently, over 200 organisations, cumulatively employing over 500,000 people, use Studytube. Clients include VolkerWessels, Manpower, ASR, Adecco, Port of Rotterdam, the Province of Gelderland and numerous municipalities, including the municipality of Groningen. Studytube headquarters in Amsterdam and employs around 90 Tubers. Studytube is led by Homam Karimi (co-founder, CEO). Gerhard Riphagen (co-founder, CPO) is responsible for product development and Sebastiaan Menheere (co-founder, COO) is responsible for the operation. For the past three years in a row, Studytube achieved a top 20 position in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50.
About Verdane
Verdane is a specialist growth equity investment firm that partners with ambitious Northern European tech-enabled businesses to help them reach the next stage of international growth. Verdane pioneered portfolio acquisitions in Northern Europe in 2003, and announced a complementary fund strategy entirely dedicated to direct investments in 2018. Verdane’s eight funds hold €1.8bn in total commitments and have made over 120 investments in growth sectors including advanced industry, consumer internet, enterprise software, energy & resource efficiency and financial services. Category leaders backed by Verdane include Confirmit, Danelec Marine, Dapresy, inRiver, HappyOrNot, Talentech, and Smava. Verdane’s more than 50 employees, based in Berlin, Copenhagen, Helsinki, London, Oslo and Stockholm, are dedicated to being the best growth partner in Northern Europe. www.verdane.com