LRM is an investment company that develops and stimulates economic growth in Limburg. We provide a solid foundation so that companies and projects that create jobs in Limburg can grow. Our financial resources and expertise, together with the assets of Limburg, provide a unique breeding ground.

Limburgse Reconversie Maatschappij

ING is a global financial institution of Dutch origin offering banking, investments, life insurance and retirement services. They serve more than 85 million private, corporate and institutional customers in Europe, North and Latin America, Asia and Australia.   They draw on our experience and expertise, their commitment to excellent service and their global scale to meet the needs of a broad customer base, comprising individuals, families, small businesses, large corporations, institutions and governments.

ING Group

Startupbootcamp is a global network of industry-focused startup accelerators that provides investment and mentorship services.   Startupbootcamp facilitates this mentorship-driven model by providing startups with essential tools during a 3-month accelerator program. The company provides €15,000 towards living expenses for the team during the program, 6 months co-working space, over €450,000 in sponsored services and the platform to pitch to over 400 investors at Investor Demo Day.  Startupbootcamp was founded in 2010 and operates in cities such as Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Copenhagen, Miami, New York, Cape Town, Dubai, Istanbul, London, Chengdu, Rome and Mumbai

Startupbootcamp

Founded in 2010, Startupbootcamp is an award-winning global network of industry-focused accelerator programs. Startupbootcamp runs 3 accelerator programs in Amsterdam, one of which is focused on Commerce and Retail solutions. With 20+ programs in Europe, Asia, North & South America, MENA & Africa, selected startups gain access to the most relevant mentors, partners, and investors in their industry.

Startupbootcamp Commerce Amsterdam

1. The media Concentra bring communities together around a reliable mix of news, information, services and entertainment.   2. Communities are larger or smaller groups of people that are connected to each other by common interests, interests, needs or expectations.   3. The media and the staff of concentrators are themselves part of these communities. Concentra is helping to build a common future by providing news and information, providing services and creating relaxation.   4. Editorial credibility, quality, authenticity and creativity are the pillars on which the success of the media Concentra is built.   5. The talent of the staff and the efficiency of the systems are the foundation of our company.   6. The profitability of our operations will benefit our employees, customers, suppliers and shareholders and secures the future of Concentra.

Concentra Media

BNP Paribas Fortis is the bank for a changing world. A bank managed in all transparency, driven by values of responsibility, humanity, innovation and enthusiasm.  BNP Paribas Fortis is a credit institution with headquarters at Montagne du Parc 3, 1000 Brussels.  Its share capital is 9,375 billion Euros, of which 99.93% is held by BNP Paribas a credit institution with headquarters in Paris.  BNP Paribas Fortis is managed by a Board of Directors, who represent the shareholders collectively. The Board of Directors determines the general policy and strategy of the bank, oversees the Executive Committees activities, appoints and dismisses Executive Committee members and oversees internal control. Within the overall framework set by the Board, the board delegates BNP Paribas Fortis banking activities to the Executive Committee.  BNP Paribas Fortis is a bank that is responsible and socially committed. The environment, diversity, cultural support, sponsorship... Through various and concrete ways, they are dedicated to meeting their customers’ expectations and proud to demonstrate their values: responsible, human, innovative and enthusiastic.  BNP Paribas Fortis is very ambitious in this area. They are dedicated in various ways, thanks to their private foundation - BNP Paribas Fortis Foundation – as well also through their sectoral policies, their environmental commitments, their diversity policy, their cultural support and their sponsorship policy.  BNP Paribas Fortis was born from the merger of a number of strong financial companies, which since the 19th century have been essential pillars of Belgium's economic and social history. Their bank is firmly rooted in their society and has a tradition of genuine commitment through its services and support to the economy.  At BNP Paribas Fortis, they offer their customers a full range of financial products and services. Every day, they help their customers, regardless of their profile, whether they are individuals, companies or public institutions. BNP Paribas Fortis, it’s expertise and tailored solutions. It’s an international network in almost 75 countries!

BNP Paribas Fortis

Force Over Mass Capital is an FCA regulated venture capital firm focused on early stage technology investments across UK and Europe. We invest in B2B innovation across four verticals, i.e. Fintech, Artificial Intelligence, SaaS and Industry 4.0. FOM cap operates both seed and scale-up funds to support early stage businesses through their growth journey.

Force Over Mass Capital

Fortino Capital will provide expansion capital and expertise, to exceptional entrepreneurs and companies in Europe and the USA, for building growth enabling SAAS based software platforms, mainly designed for SMEs and for building brands and go-to-market strategies, for media and high-end product manufacturing companies. Additionally, Fortino will invest in companies that have the ambition to reinvent their business model through applying best-in-class management practices and state-of-the-art technologies.

Fortino Capital

MobieTrain

MobieTrain is the #1 Mobile Microlearning App for your Frontline Teams designed for companies to easily create their own branded learning tracks with their own training content. We empower employees of organisations such as Emirates Post, Decathlon, Timberland, Vans, Hastens, Atlas Copco, the Cities of Rotterdam and Antwerp with the right content, at the right time, on the device they prefer.  This is how we help them to acquire new skills in their professional and personal lives. The MobieTrain Platform transfers knowledge 6x more effectively while reducing the time of content creation and administration by more than 50%.  This helps companies to streamline their onboarding, employee engagement, sales and customer experience, compliance and change management activities.  At MobieTrain we believe that microlearning is the future of work. Our mobile-first platform empowers employees with daily, bite-sized content that boosts knowledge retention and productivity.  We make learning fun again with gamified, personalised content that can be accessed anywhere, on any mobile device. Want more information? Visit: https://www.mobietrain.com and discover the world of mobile-first microlearning to train your workforce in an engaging and efficient way. Welcome!

Founded in 2015 by Guy Van Neck, Mireille van Hemert-Schelling, and Willi Van Boven, Antwerp-based MobieTrain is a mobile-first microlearning platform with the mission to make learning accessible to all employees. Offering a gamified platform, bite-sized, personalized learning tracks, and retention techniques, MobieTrain allows even deskless employees to learn while in the flow of work. As of May 2021, the platform had about 100,000 users in private and public sector organizations across more than 30 countries. Half of the company’s revenue was from international markets.

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

EdTech: Corporate Learning

MobieTrain raises €9m to expand European market leadership in microlearning

Founded in 2015 by Guy Van Neck, Mireille van Hemert-Schelling, and Willi Van Boven, Antwerp-based MobieTrain is a mobile-first microlearning platform with the mission to make learning accessible to all employees. Offering a gamified platform, bite-sized, personalized learning tracks, and retention techniques, MobieTrain allows even deskless employees to learn while in the flow of work. As of May 2021, the platform had about 100,000 users in private and public sector organizations across more than 30 countries. Half of the company’s revenue was from international markets.In May 2021, the company raised EUR 4 million (USD 4.8 million) in Series A funding to develop its platform (such as adding new gamified elements), strengthen its presence in Europe, expand internationally, and increase headcount.

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 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

MobieTrain

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