London (UK), June 2020 - The Degreed upskilling platform has announced $32 million in new funding in direct response to overwhelming demand for better skill insights, talent mobility, and a user-focused learning experience. Owl Ventures led this latest round, bringing Degreed's total funding to $182 million.
According to Human Resource Executive, 75% to 80% of workers don't complete their HR system's talent profile, leaving organizations without a critical data set needed to inform agile business decisions. Degreed helps companies overcome this gap by enabling employees to develop their skills and create skill profiles. Using this data, the platform can then promote career mobility by connecting users to project, gig, and job opportunities. This round of funding will accelerate Degreed's career mobility roadmap.
"We've seen a tremendous surge in client demand for our career-mobility product. It's more important than ever for companies to understand the skills of their workforce, enrich their upskilling programs, and enable internal mobility," said Chris McCarthy, CEO of Degreed. "Employees don't care about a system of record that they see once or twice per year. They need a simple, personalized experience that helps them build their skills and advance their careers."
"Transformation is the new normal. In order for us to keep up with the changes, learning agility is key to the organization - especially because upskilling is anticipated to save organizations $1.2 billion over the next three years," said Raquel Andrade, Global Head of Talent Acquisition & Learning at Itaú Unibanco, a Degreed client that is the largest financial institution in Latin America and the sixteenth largest bank in the world. "Only skill data can reveal to us the business areas where we need to evolve, and drive transformation from inside out at Itaú."
Funding comes after record demand for Degreed in the last six months. More than one-in-seven Degreed users activated their accounts between April and May this year alone. New clients - including Ford, Fidelity Investments, and South Africa's Standard Bank - quickly shifted their workforce strategies to empower remote work and talent mobility.
"The workforce has fundamentally shifted over the past few months, and organizations are investing further in their people and skills," said Ian Chiu, Managing Director of Owl Ventures. "The need for lifelong learning is greater than ever, and with this latest funding round, Degreed is well positioned to shape a future in which people’s skills are the measure of their success - and not their job titles; a world in which nobody becomes irrelevant because of a lack of the right skills at the right time."
