News story

Sponge welcomes Skill Pill to its digital learning group

Learning NewsSponge

Aliter Capital, who own Sponge, have acquired Skill Pill, to further strengthen the newly enlarged group’s credentials as a market leading full-service digital learning business.

 

Sponge, a market pioneer in bespoke digital learning, has welcomed the microlearning provider Skill Pill to extend its scope of digital products and services. This highly complementary product offering will further strengthen Sponge group’s credentials as a market leading full-service digital learning business.

Skill Pill offers ready-to-go courses, with a particular strength in leadership and management skills training. They have a library of over 500 off the shelf modules on soft skills topics available in over 20 languages. The content is used in a wide range of organisations such as the BBC, Fujitsu, John Lewis/Waitrose, Save theChildrenand the NHS, plus more than a hundred of high-profile loyal customers.

Skill Pill courses are developed with high-quality video, animation, and gamified elearning content. Its learning is based on globally recognised methodologies published by leading organisations such as Pearson and the Financial Times.

Billy Allan, Chairman of Sponge and Managing Partner of Aliter said: “We are very pleased with the progress that has been made on the strategic plan for our existing group. The addition of Skill Pill will significantly add to the subscription-based ‘off-the-shelf’ content sales and further strengthen our customer base, including new blue-chip corporate and channel partner relationships.”

Gerry Griffin, Founder and Managing Director of Skill Pill said: "We are excited at the prospect of working with Aliter and becoming part of a group with Sponge, allowing us direct access to award-winning bespoke content and expanding Skill Pill's range further to create a dominant offer in quality, international digital learning."
  

About Skill Pill (skillpill.com)

Founded by Gerry Griffin in 2015; Skill Pill focuses on corporate learning and business skills through advanced micro learning content with an adaptive algorithm technology, so each module has a 14 point ‘fingerprint’ allowing the system to match the pattern of the learner and along with recommendations. Their learning library specialises in business performance support: leadership, management, sales and personal effectiveness; c.500 modules; c.20 languages with ability to add more as needed. Skill Pill have established over 100 high profile loyal customers over the years through their growing content and advanced learning technology.

 
About Sponge (www.wearesponge.com)

Sponge UK Limited was founded in 2004 by Louise Pasterfield. A leading custom digital learning provider, Sponge training solutions solve multiple business challenges, from risk and compliance to business transformation, people development and skills enhancement. The company works with global brands across multiple sectors and industries including pharmaceutical, retail, manufacturing, finance, professional services and FMCG. Recognised as a market leader, Sponge was named Learning Provider of the Year at 2019 LPI Learning Awards and won silver for Company of the Year at the 2018 Learning Technologies Awards.  

 
About Aliter (www.alitercap.com)

Aliter Capital LLP is a specialist UK support services investor which announced the close of its specialist support services fund (Aliter Capital I, LP) in February 2017.

Aliter was founded by a group of seasoned support services entrepreneurs and investors – Billy Allan, Greig Brown, Andy Galloway and Andrew Busby – and focuses on small and mid-sized businesses in the UK support services sector, a market valued at over £300 billion. Its approach differs from traditional private equity models by making only a limited number of selective portfolio investments to deliver dedicated hands-on support. Aliter has now closed a total of 17 transactions since the beginning.