Telecommunications and internet group SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 co-led a $200m funding round today for 360Learning, the France-based developer of an online corporate education platform.
The round was co-led with private equity firm Sumeru Equity Partners and growth capital fund Silver Lake Waterman and backed by French public investment bank BPIfrance through its Large Venture Fund, in addition to XAnge and Educapital.
Founded in 2012, 360Learning offers an online learning engagement platform that provides training for staff at large and global corporations. It intends to use the capital to hire about 300 people in the next year and bolster research and development.
The company had previously raised $41m from BPIfrance, Hi Inov – Dentressangle, XAnge, Educapital and Isai in an April 2019 series B round. That was preceded by $1.6m in seed funding from Isai and 3T Capital in 2013.
Paul Davison, senior investor at SoftBank Investment Advisers, which manages Vision Fund 2, said: “We believe the accelerating evolution of the workforce towards remote and distributed teams places an imperative on all companies to rethink how they train, upskill and retain employees more effectively.
“360Learning places collaboration at the heart of the learning experience with personalised courses, decentralised creation and adaptive delivery. The platform draws out the best knowledge and experience from every corner of an enterprise, which boosts employee use and transforms engagement levels.”