The Workforce Development top 50 emerging companies

Emerge Edtech, an early-stage investor in education technology start-up businesses, is publishing a list of fifty emerging companies in workforce development.

The list was discussed during a webinar on 21 June hosted by Donald H Taylor, chair of Emerge Education's Workforce Development Edtech Leadership Group, presented by Emerge Education’s, Mario Barosevcic and Nic Newman, with expert input from the edtech and skills strategy advisor, Amanda Nolen and representatives from two of the companies featured, Yael Kaufmann from Learn In and Johannes Schnell-Kretschmer from Junto, amongst others.

The webinar was presented and recorded on LinkedIn and is available to view: The Edtech Top 50 emerging companies for Workforce Development.

The methodology used in producing the list was based on crowdsourced voting, used both public and private data and considered: the quality of features and capabilities; the breadth and quality of courses/content and pedagogy; market visibility, innovation and impact; strength of clients and geographic reach; company size and growth potential. 

• The average invested in each business is $100m;
• The highest investment in any one company was $1bn;
• 45% of these companies are from Europe but all are selling globally
• They span 2011–2020 with an average age of five years
• Between them they have created 10,000 jobs

There are five categories - Career Navigation Infrastructure, Skills Assessment, Collaboration Applied Learning, Skills Acquisition and Verticalised Learning Providers. The fifty companies have been placed into these five categories.

The Edtech Top 50 emerging companies for Workforce Development

1. Career Navigation Infrastructure
eightfold.ai, futurefit ai, Gloot, Guild, Multiverse, Retrain.ai 

2. Skills Assessment
Chorus, Techwolf, TestGorila, Workera

3. Collaboration Applied Learning
360Learning, Andela, BetterUp, BigSpring, Coachhub, eduMe, Hopps, Interplay Learning, Lingoda, On Deck, Sana, Sharpist, SkillerWhale, Sparkwise, vCoach, Zavvy

4. Skills Acquisition
Crehana, Coursera, Degreed, FutureLearn, Go1, Hone, Junto, Learn In, Maven, Open Classrooms 

5. Verticalised Learning Providers
AIHR, AMBOSS, Emeritus, Lecturi, Lepaya, masterplan.com, Section4, Product School, Proximie, Reforge, repl.it, Skills Impact Academy, SkyHive, The Power MBA

Nic Newman and the team were at pains to let people know that it's not intended as a definitive list and, during the webinar, pointed out several other businesses that polled highly but just missed out on inclusion and that the group welcomes debate on how the list is arrived at and other businesses that people feel might be included in future lists.

Emerge Education had published a narrative with the full listing of companies and more information about each category: Edtech top 50 start-ups 

For more information visit Emerge Education.