NEW YORK, NY — (Marketwired) — 07/17/13 — , the leading that trains users on top Internet tools and cloud services with 60-second, personalized videos, that it has secured a $5.5 million Series A round of venture capital funding. Greg Waldorf, the founding investor and former CEO of eHarmony, led the financing and joined Grovo-s Board of Directors as Chairman. The financing includes venture investors Greg Sands of Costanoa Venture Capital and Jeff Clavier of SoftTech VC. The investment will accelerate Grovo-s product development, deepen marketing and sales efforts, and capitalize on and international interest.
“Grovo has Fortune 500 customers, international reach, and proprietary technology powering its efficient video production model,” said Waldorf. “Some of the largest corporations in the world are finding Grovo from its consumer reach. What has me most excited is that this growth thus far has been organic and reminds me of several other successful companies I-ve worked with closely. I look forward to working with the team to accelerate our progress.”
Waldorf-s successes at Internet services eHarmony and Trulia will help the young, fast-growing startup scale and accelerate growth. Launched in October of 2010 by a trio of Cofounders (Jeff Fernandez, Surag Mungekar, and Nick Narodny), Grovo has users in more than 150 countries who are developing their professional skills and becoming more productive in their day-to-day lives. Grovo has delivered more than one million video lessons, and the average user consumers more than 10 lessons. In the last year, the company has tripled its user base and has paying customers in 6 continents.
Grovo-s rapidly growing library features over covering 100+ Internet tools and cloud services. Grovo-s daily updates ensure that users will be the first to know when there are changes to the sites, apps and tools they rely on, with realtime videos delivered directly to their inbox.
Concurrent with the financing announcement, Grovo is also launching some critical features. The launch includes personalized learning tracks based on user goals, custom learning track creation for organizations, and expanded pedagogy and taxonomy. The update is fully responsive web design, so the experience adjusts to users- desktop, mobile, or tablet training device of choice.
“From Evernote, Dropbox, Facebook and Google Apps to Office 365, proliferation in the cloud is accelerating, not decelerating,” said Jeff Fernandez, Cofounder and CEO of Grovo. “Professional development in the cloud is quickly becoming a requirement to advance your career. Grovo keeps up with the cloud-s pace of innovation and makes it easy for you to do the same. Before you realize there-s something you need to learn, Grovo lets you know with high quality, personalized video updates.”
Additional and previous investors include Lerer Ventures, Red Swan Ventures, David Tisch (Managing Partner of Box Group and CoFounder of TechStars NYC), David Honig (Vision Ventures), Kal Vepuri (Founder and Chairman of Trisiras Group), Thomas Lehrman (Cofounder and Board Member of the Gerson Lehrman Group), Gordon Rubenstein (investor in Machinima), Dan Beltramo (Founder/CEO of Vizu, acq. by Nielsen), Mareza Larizadeh (Larizadeh Capital Partners), Milestone VP, and Bill Lohse (Former President of Ziff Davis Publishing and Founder of Social Starts).
“Grovo is squarely at the intersection of enterprise and consumer markets,” said Greg Sands of Costanoa Venture Capital. “With a clear business model and global footprint at this early stage, we-re excited about how Grovo is gaining widespread adoption.” Jeff Clavier of SoftTech VC added, “We-re excited for Grovo to bring its friendly product and realtime production model to consumers all over the world, and to help large organizations keep their employees proficient in the cloud.”
Grovo.com, the leading online platform that trains users on top Internet tools and cloud services with 60-second. Featuring 3,500+ video lessons covering 100+ Internet tools and cloud services — and 15 lessons added daily — Grovo is the fastest and easiest way to become a better Internet user. With coverage, tools and training ideal for consumers, businesses, educators, and governments, users in 150 countries are using Grovo to work smarter and sharpen their Internet skills. For organizations and enterprises Grovo-s lightweight training dashboard, Grovo for Teams, enables employee training on the Internet tools, sites, and trends they need to stay ahead. Founded in 2010, Grovo is a privately held, venture backed company headquartered in New York City. For more information, please visit .
Image Available:
Image Available:
Matt Clark
Grovo Learning, Inc.
Director of Communications
212.924.2579
You must be logged in to post a comment Login