Degreed- an Edutech start-up has raised US$ 32M in a funding round on Wednesday led by Owl Ventures. Its total funding stands at US$ 182M.
Founded in 2012, Degreed trains employees and is a skill enhancement and Skill profile creation platform. It promotes career mobility by connecting users to job opportunities or projects. The market demand for upskilling and reskilling has risen amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The recent funding will help the start-up accelerate its career mobility roadmap.
They have seen a surge in client demand for their career mobility product. Its demand has been increasing since the last 6 months and is expected to rise more. Their clients- Ford, Fidelity Investments and Standard Bank (SA) shifted their employee strategies to empower remote work. Its clients in India include Asian Paints and Tata Communications. It makes money charging a monthly fee to its clients.
Users can also earn a Degreed Skill Certification, where work is verified and analysed by data scientists. Users also need to provide two references of people who can vouch for them.
“It keeps people skilled and employable; nobody should become irrelevant in the future because they lack the right skills,” said CEO Chris McCarthy. According to co-founder David Blake, the high demand is due the increased uncertainty nowadays. The company has also connected around 4 million people over various organizations, for example- NASA and Cisco.