Fuel Ventures is a technology fund focusing on marketplaces, fintech, platforms, and SaaS startups in the UK.  The Fuel Ventures Portfolio (the ''Fund'') invests at the most lucrative early stages of internet technology companies that have exceptional growth potential and substantial returns can be achieved. The Fund focuses on marketplaces, platforms, and SaaS business models, identifying investments in seed and growth stages. Bringing together great entrepreneurs into an environment of innovation, collaboration, and support in RocketSpace in the heart of London. We provide a unique combination of mentorship, experience, and access to the investment required to drive a business and ideas to success. Founded in 2015 by entrepreneur and investor Mark Pearson, Fuel Ventures is focused on bringing a unique approach to early-stage investment.

Fuel Ventures

Pearson operates as a media and education company in the United Kingdom, other European countries, the United States, Canada, Asia Pacific, and internationally. The company operates through North American Education, International Education, Professional, and FT Group segments. It provides its customers with a range of products and services such as curriculum textbooks and other learning materials; student assessments and testing services; and education technologies for educators and students from early education through elementary, middle and high school, and higher education. It also publishes educational materials in local languages; English language teaching materials for children and adults; and online learning products as well as offers testing, assessment, and qualification services. In addition, Pearson Education is involved in publishing, training, testing, and certification for professionals; publishes computer, information technology, and business titles; and offers electronic testing for regulatory and certification boards providing a suite of services from test development to test delivery and data management. It also offers a range of data, analysis, and services through various print, digital, and mobile channels to business people and financial institutions.   The company publishes [The Financial Times](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/the-financial-times), an international daily business newspaper with five editions in the U.K., Continental Europe, the U.S., Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East; and operates FT.com which sells content and advertising online as well as publishes information about the retail, personal, and institutional finance industries.  Pearson Education was founded in 1844 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.

Pearson

Mercia Asset Management invest across four distinct asset classes of venture, private equity and debt, referred to as our ‘Complete Capital Solution.Mercia Asset Management ision is to be the first choice for investors, investees and employees and, by aspiring to be the first choice, we believe that Mercia will deliver superior returns for business owners, shareholders and fund investors alike.

Mercia Asset Management

HowNow

HowNow is a London-based EdTech startup that connects experts and learners by offering interactive video lessons.  It is an online platform that gives everyone the opportunity to learn from experts all over the world.  HowNow's live online video classes mean that teachers and students can interact with one another as if they were in the same room.  The company has more than 400 experts teaching in 33 countries.

<div>HowNow is a UK-based learning experience solution provider that provides an integrated platform designed to support organizations in their efforts to onboard, upskill, and support their employees. The platform combines multiple resources such as training, shared knowledge, blogs, podcasts, and courses into a centralized location to facilitate collaborative learning. Additionally, the platform includes a dashboard for companies to track the growth and skill progression of their workforce and to create personalized learning programs to address any skills gaps. As of February 2023, the platform had served 10,000+ users, including Depop, Vanmoof, Permutive, Checkout.com, Mercer, Telenor, Sanofi, and Investec.</div>

Modern tools to train and motivate staff, and bridge emerging skill gaps.

EdTech: Corporate Learning

HowNow - employee learning made easy

<div>
 
 HowNow is a UK-based learning experience solution provider that provides an integrated platform designed to support organizations in their efforts to onboard, upskill, and support their employees. The platform combines multiple resources such as training, shared knowledge, blogs, podcasts, and courses into a centralized location to facilitate collaborative learning. Additionally, the platform includes a dashboard for companies to track the growth and skill progression of their workforce and to create personalized learning programs to address any skills gaps. As of February 2023, the platform had served 10,000+ users, including Depop, Vanmoof, Permutive, Checkout.com, Mercer, Telenor, Sanofi, and Investec.
 
 
 The platform claimed to generate 5x more engagement than a traditional learning management system (LMS).
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 In November 2022, the company formed partnerships with Mind Tools for Business to expand its content library. The partnership allows access to Mind Tools&rsquo; e-learning modules, which specialize in management and compliance, as well as an animation suite that includes up to 50 videos on various topics.&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In February 2023, the company raised 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16184">
 GBP 4 million (~USD 5 million) in a Series A funding
 </a>
 round from Mercia Asset Management and Pearson. It planned to use the funds to hire more team members, expand its operations internationally, and for further platform development.
 
</div>

<div>
 
 Coursera is a massive open online course provider (MOOC) founded in 2012 by Stanford University professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller. Coursera partners with universities and organizations to offer classes, courses, specialization programs, projects, certificates, degree programs, and workforce development products. The platform hosts classes from more than 200 universities and contains a suite of video lectures, auto-graded homework assignments, and discussion forums.&nbsp;
 
 
 Launched in 2016, Coursera for Business is the company's enterprise platform; Coursera for Government and Nonprofits, introduced in 2017, offers skill development courses for government and nonprofit workforces; and Coursera for Campus allows universities to offer online education to students, alumni, faculty, and staff. As of August 2021, the Coursera platform was being used by about 87 million learners, with Coursera for Business being used by more than 2,300 organizations and 550,000 enterprise learners as of September 2020.
 
 
 In April 2021, Coursera announced that it was testing a new program that allows learners to create courses by making its Guided Project teaching tool available to its learner community. In August 2021, the company announced a new fee structure for universities where fees paid to Coursera progressively reduce from 40% to 25% of total online tuition fees. The company also launched a Leadership Academy within Coursera for Business, to provide soft skills training to corporate leaders. &ldquo;LevelSets,&rdquo; an assessment tool with over 20 different machine learning-based skill assessments, was launched in November 2021 to enable learners to determine their current proficiency in business, technology, and data skills. More recently, in May 2022, the company launched Clips, a learning program that comprises 200,000+ videos for skill development for companies and universities. Additionally, the company released new tools, including personalized schedules, data-driven deadlines, lecture summaries, and adobe-guided projects. In conjunction with the release of new features, the company announced the launch of Career Academy for institutions, a career training program for learners that provide entry-level professional certification from notable corporations such as&nbsp; Google, IBM, and Meta.&nbsp;
 In February 2024, Coursera launched the Generative AI (GenAI) Academy in the UAE, partnering with top universities and companies like Microsoft and Google, to train executives and employees in AI skills.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 Coursera continues to deploy collaborations to introduce new courses and expand its audience. The company selected Persona, a provider of identity verification infrastructure, as its identity verification partner to ensure that learners receive their credentials. The company partnered with K16 Solutions, a specialist in LMS course migration, course design, and course archiving, allowing Coursera users to quickly move course content from their LMS onto the Coursera platform as a result of its integration with K16 Solutions' Scaffold Migration tool. In May 2022, the company partnered with several institutions and enterprises, including IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Indore, IIIT Bangalore, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Hero Mindmine, PwC India, and Tally Education, to meet the demand for job-relevant credentials.
 
 
 The company has entered into several notable client partnerships. In September 2021, it partnered with EFMD, a non-profit accreditation body, to provide business school students across 700 member institutions in 90 countries access to more than 4,000 courses and 1,900 Guided Projects on Coursera. The program will include courses from Google, Facebook, BCG, IBM, and Microsoft and they will be developed with support from partner schools and companies. In August 2022, Coursera partnered with corporate learning solution provider Skillsoft, to allow Skillsoft users access to Coursera for Business directly within Skillsoft Percipio.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In July 2020, Coursera raised USD 130 million as part of its Series F funding round, led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA). The funding will be used toward product development and engineering, expanding its job-relevant catalog, and furthering the company's overseas expansion. Specifically, the funding will allow the company to meet increased demand for two Covid-focused initiatives: Campus Response Initiative to help universities teach affected students, and Workforce Recovery Initiative to help governments reskill unemployed workers.&nbsp;
 
 
 In March 2021, Coursera went public and reportedly raised USD 519 million, with a post money-valuation of USD 5.86 billion.&nbsp;
 
 
 For the 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16316">
 full-year 2022,
 </a>
 the company's revenue increased by 26% YoY to USD 523.8 million. However, the company also reported an operating loss of USD 177.4 million (up 24% YoY) and an adjusted EBITDA loss of USD 36.9 million (up 4.1% YoY), resulting in a net loss of USD 1.21 per share (down by 5.5% YoY). The company 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/20536">
 upgraded its full-year guidance for FY2023,
 </a>
 with revenue expected to range from USD 617 million&ndash;USD 623 million, and revised its adjusted EBITDA loss to range USD 19 million&ndash;USD 24 million.
 
</div>

Coursera

<div>
 
 Founded by David Blake, David Wiley, and Eric Sharp in 2012, Degreed is a professional and lifelong learning platform that provides curated educational content such as courses, videos, articles, books, and podcasts for employee skill building and skill certification. Degreed is free for individual users while Degreed for Enterprise, launched in 2014 as the company&rsquo;s corporate offering that links to companies&rsquo; internal training systems, is available for a fee. In addition to providing training and coursework, Degreed for Enterprise matches employees' skill profiles, roles, and goals with opportunities, projects, and gigs. As of April 2021, the platform had been used by more than seven million people across more than 350 organizations.
 
 
 &nbsp;In April 2024, It introduced &ldquo;The shift&rdquo;, an online community focused on the skills-first shift that shares stories, ideas, and advice from business leaders on the topic.&nbsp;
 
 
 Degreed&rsquo;s acquisitions include Gibbon, a Dutch platform for creating learning content playlists in 2016; Pathgather, a New York-based learning experience platform for enterprises in 2018; and London&rsquo;s Adepto, a contract and gig work platform in 2019. Its most recent acquisition was in June 2022, when it 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/11296">
 acquired Learn In,
 </a>
 the upskilling-as-a-service platform, to strengthen Degreed&rsquo;s suite of services by integrating Learn In&rsquo;s solutions across the areas of user development, individual upskilling opportunities, and organizational innovation.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships&nbsp;
 
 
 The company has used collaborations and partnerships to expand its portfolio of offerings. In November 2020, Degreed announced a partnership with TED to launch TED@Work on its platform. TED@Work is a library of more than 500 TED Talks and TED-Ed animations&mdash;each including a business-focused framework designed to create actionable outcomes. In February 2021, Pluralsight, a technology learning platform, expanded its partnership with Degreed, allowing Pluralsight&rsquo;s enterprise users to incorporate assessment data from Pluralsight&rsquo;s Skill IQ into Degreed&rsquo;s skill analytics and gain greater visibility into individual and team technology skills. Historically, Degreed users were able to integrate Pluralsight&rsquo;s technology content. In April 2021, the company partnered with Watershed, a provider of learning analytics platforms and part of UK-based Learning Technologies Group, allowing Degreed users access to enhanced learning analytics and reporting. In May 2021, the company announced a collaboration with Credly, a digital credentialing company, to render Credly&rsquo;s digital credentials visible in Degreed&rsquo;s talent development programs. This allows organizations to build transparent, centralized records of skill gaps and learning opportunities. Degreed partnered with Learn In, a developer of marketplace and funding solutions for skill building through bootcamp and certificate programs. Degreed users gain access to a marketplace of learning experiences, tools for employer tuition assistance, and support via personal coaches. In June 2021, Degreed deepened its five-year old partnership with CredSpark, a provider of audience engagement and insights solutions. Existing &ldquo;CredSpark for Degreed'' users will gain access to additional tools and enhancements, and a new paid offering, &ldquo;CredSpark+&rdquo;, will give its users access to more sophisticated CredSpark tools. In May 2021, the company partnered with BoostUp.ai, the developer of a revenue intelligence and operations platform, to gain insight into its sales pipeline and improve pipeline management.&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In June 2020, the company raised USD 32 million in a Series C extension round led by Owl Ventures. The funds will be used to develop its career mobility product that helps companies train their employees to fill internal opportunities. Degreed will also allow employees to showcase their skills and connect with job opportunities. In April 2021, Degreed raised USD 153 million in Series D funding to accelerate product development, enhance data infrastructure, fuel global expansion, and pursue strategic acquisitions. In August 2021, the company appointed Wendy Steinle as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and Janice Burns as Chief People Officer.
 
</div>

Degreed

<div>
 
 Founded in 2015 by Rachel Carlson and Brittany Stich, Guild Education partners with businesses, non-profits, and universities to offer education as a benefit in the form of online classes, programs, and degrees from more than 80 universities and more than a dozen community colleges. Companies may provide their employees with partial or full tuition support to upskill or earn a degree. Guild works with employers to select programs that are most relevant to its employees, earning a percentage of the fees paid to the universities. The universities then save the expense and effort involved in marketing and recruitment. The company also provides its own support and mentoring services to help students plan, apply for, and finish their programs. As of November 2019, about 400,000 working adults joined the program–around 3%-5% of employees at partner companies. As of May 2020, the Guild Education platform offered more than 1,600 online degree programs.
 
 
 In June 2021, the company announced the formation of a new Advisory Board of diverse business education leaders to generate insights and better serve all stakeholders.
 
 
 In May 2020, Guild Education launched Next Chapter, a program that replaces outplacement services by using algorithms to match employees with new roles in fields that are hiring and recommend programs for retraining. The company also acquired Entangled Group, an educational technology (EdTech) consulting and venture studio that also served as an initial investor in Guild Education. Entangled Group's portfolio of 21 EdTech companies will be managed independently of Guild Education.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 In February 2021, the company partnered with 2U, Inc., a developer of digital educational offerings in partnership with colleges and universities, to make 2U’s portfolio of more than 500 digital programs (including online degree programs, online short courses, and boot camps) available on the Guild Education platform. In March 2021, Ancora Corporate Training, a part of Ancora Education, an operator of private, post-secondary schools across the US, partnered with Guild Education by joining the Guild Education Learning Marketplace. In February 2022, the company partnered with UCHealth to launch the UCHealth Ascend Career Program, an educational and upskilling program investing up to USD 50 million for UCHealth employees. 
 More recently, In June 2022, Guild Education partnered with Snowflake, a cloud computing–based data warehousing firm, to deploy Snowflake’s new cybersecurity workload solution to strengthen its data security. 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In June 2022, Guild Education reportedly raised 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10883">
 USD 175 million in a Series F 
 </a>
 funding round led by Wellington Management. It planned to use the funds to expand into in-demand markets such as healthcare, childcare solutions, and career assessments. The company’s valuation rose to USD 4.4 billion from USD 3.75 billion a year ago. The company also reported that its annual recurring revenue (ARR) was more than USD 100 million in FY2020.
 
</div>

Guild Education

<div>
 
 Strivr has developed a virtual reality (VR) product for workplace training that simulates real-world and on-the-job situations. Strivr was incubated at Stanford University when co-founder and CEO Derek Belch developed a VR application in 2014 to help football players train off the field. The company's focus later shifted to workplace training. Its products combine interactive 360-degree videos with computer-generated scenarios in which trainees must actively participate. Strivr exclusively uses Oculus headsets for its VR experiences. As of March 2020, Strivr’s 22,000 VR headsets in operation had registered 1.6 million sessions.
 
 
 In 2017, Strivr partnered with Walmart to bring VR instruction 200 “Walmart Academy” instruction centers and all Walmart stores. In March 2021, Bank of America announced that it was rolling out Strivr’s VR product to thousands of employees across its 4,000 banks after a pilot program with about 400 employees. The bank plans to incorporate VR into its corporate learning program, “The Academy,” and apply the technology across a range of training areas such as notary services, fraud detection, and practicing empathy with customers.
 
 
 In April 2022, Strivr raised 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9834">
 USD 35 million in a funding round
 </a>
 led by Georgian Partners and will use the funds for platform development. The company also announced that it is part of Accenture Ventures’ Project Spotlight, a program focused on investing in developers of disruptive technologies. Additionally, the company is part of the Workday Software Partner Program, with plans to integrate its technology with Workday Content Cloud. 
 
</div>

Strivr

<div>
 
 Torch Leadership Labs is a leadership development platform founded by coaches, psychologists, entrepreneurs, and people managers. Torch conducts 360-degree interviews with executives, their direct reports, and peers, and scores them on empathy, visionary thinking, communication, conflict resolution, management, and collaboration. Torch lays out improvement goals and timelines, and arranges video chat sessions with specialized coaches. Sessions remain confidential and only performance goals and metrics are shared with the HR team through a dashboard on the platform. As of April 2020, Torch had worked with more than 10,000 leaders across more than 200 organizations.
 
 
 In April 2020, Torch launched Small Group Coaching, a month-long course that provides personalized coaching to small groups and individuals that also incorporates peer-to-peer learning.
 
 
 Funding and financials 
 
 
 In May 2022, the company raised USD 40 million in a Series C funding round 
 led by 137 Ventures. It planned to use the funds for product development and to scale operations. The round follows its USD 25 million Series B fundraise in February 2021.
 
</div>

Torch Leadership Labs

Learning content | Career development includes providers of content libraries and customized courses focusing on learning and developing skills directly related to job roles and careers (including hard skills, soft skills, and skills in demand). Delivery styles are varied and include in-person or virtual classrooms, mobile learning, and micro-learning. A variety of technologies may be employed such as video-based learning, artificial intelligence-based (AI-based) and adaptive learning, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR).

Massive open online course (MOOC) platforms allow large numbers of users to sign up for various courses from multiple sources, offering a flexible and affordable means of upskilling and reskilling.

Coaching, tutoring, and mentoring platforms connect employees with experts and specialists who provide personalized training and development support.

Technology platforms such as learning management systems (LMS), learning experience platforms (LXP), and learning content management systems (LCMS) host in-house or third-party content, track progress, and generate analytics. Content development tools comprise authoring and course-building tools for instructional designers, corporate trainers, and educators. Content development tools comprise authoring and course-building tools for instructional designers, corporate trainers, and educators.

Learning and engagement tools include platforms that offer adaptive learning, gamification, immersive learning, and microlearning solutions that can be used by enterprises for the delivery of learning content.

Service providers include those offering digital credentialing and identity authentication solutions, among others.

Learning content | Supplementary skills includes providers of content libraries and customized courses focusing on learning and developing supplementary skills. Delivery styles are varied and include in-person or virtual classrooms, mobile learning, and micro-learning. A variety of technologies may be employed such as video-based learning, artificial intelligence-based (AI-based) and adaptive learning, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR).

Virtual, augmented, and mixed reality technologies create immersive and interactive learning experiences

Technologies use algorithms and data analysis to improve employee training and development

LLearning platforms and D&I learning modules to promote a more inclusive and equitable workplace culture

Solutions provide insight into employee performance and areas for improvement

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