Seismic

Founded in 2010 by Douglas Winter, Ed Calnan, Fred Xie, Marc Romano, and Nasser Barghouti, Seismic is a sales and marketing enablement platform that enables sales teams to interact with potential customers in a more productive and engaging way. Sales training is one of the company’s major offerings to enterprises to increase close rates and sales productivity. The product includes training profiles, just-in-time training content, and insights. 

In August 2021, the company acquired Lessonly, a corporate learning management system (LMS), for an undisclosed figure. This news comes in conjunction with the announcement of Seismic closing its most recent Series G funding round of USD 170 million led by Permira with participation from JMI Equity, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Jackson Square Ventures, and Ameriprise, bringing its valuation up to USD 3 billion.

Founded in 2012, Lessonly’s corporate LMS allows firms to create and deliver online training for employees. The company reported that its platform had three million users across more than 1,000 companies in April 2020. Its growth has been aided by the addition of LlamaNation, a customer community that virtually connects more than 500 users from 35 different countries. Members (known as llamas) share best practices, connect with other leaders in the training space, and provide feedback on Lessonly’s products and services. The company’s last funding round was in April 2020, when it raised USD 15 million in Series C funding.

The company intends to integrate Lessonly into its existing ‘Seismic platform’ to provide sellers with the opportunity to access learning programs, practice scenarios, and coaching plans, in addition to existing sales and marketing content. Additionally, leaders will be able to use combined data and analytics to track lesson usage and analyze trends. 

In September 2021, Seismic partnered with SV Academy, a sales and customer success training and employment provider, and the Sales Enablement Society, a nonprofit organization for sales enablement professionals, to launch the “Enableship” program. Enableship offers training, coaching, mentorship, and a network for entry-level placement of underrepresented candidates into enablement positions.