SEATTLE, WA — (Marketwired) — 09/21/15 — , a cloud-based learning management system (LMS) platform for enterprises and their customers, today announced $2.6 million in seed financing, led by , with participation from existing angel investors. Skilljar will use the funds to expand on this year–s impressive customer and revenue growth, and continue building strategic product integrations such as their partnerships with , , and . In some cases, organizations using Skilljar have accelerated customer onboarding time by 90%, generated millions of dollars in new revenue, and trained thousands more users per month. Skilljar now works with over 30 leading enterprises representing tens of thousands of users.
Skilljar–s customers recognize that initial customer onboarding and training is critical to long-term product adoption and retention. Many of these companies are high-tech Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) providers and understand that every billing cycle is an opportunity for customers to renew or churn. Skilljar–s LMS plays a vital role to help them provide ongoing product training and education.
A rapidly growing number of VPs of Customer Success are seeking to scale their customer and partner training programs beyond instructor-led sessions. Skilljar is providing a modern, multi-media learning experience designed for customer education that is scalable and built for global content delivery.
“It–s critical for us to continually provide accessible product learning and training resources for our customers,” said Roberto Jusino, Customer Engagement at Autodesk, Inc. “Skilljar–s platform provides the ability to quickly deploy content in all of the latest formats. We selected Skilljar because it is purpose-built for customer training, easily integrates data with our internal systems, and can be rapidly deployed.”
“Customers expect on-demand training options with the quality of a Lynda.com or Khan Academy,” said Sandi Lin, co-founder and CEO, Skilljar. “Skilljar has become a key partner for companies to navigate a confusing range of legacy learning platforms that are outdated, designed for internal compliance (not for customers), aren–t mobile friendly and take too long to deploy. We look forward to working with Trilogy and the rest of our investors to continue to help this emerging market segment.”
The idea for Skilljar started when Sandi and her co-founder/CTO, Jason Stewart, were working as Senior Managers at Amazon. Lin, a Stanford MBA and MIT B.S. /M.S. graduate, recognized the need for a customer training LMS after running merchant onboarding for Amazon Marketplace, and witnessing first-hand the difficulties in onboarding customers to a software product at scale. Lin and Stewart began by building a search engine for online classes, but pivoted when companies kept asking for a platform to deliver online classes instead.
“The LMS market is roughly 3 billion dollars and growing more than 20% year over year,” said Amy McCullough, Partner at Trilogy Equity Partners. “Sandi and Jason have built a 21st century platform that will become the defacto standard for training and ongoing education. We look forward to partnering with Skilljar to reinvent how companies onboard, engage, and train their customers and partners and are thrilled to be working with such an impressive team.” In conjunction with the financing, McCullough has joined Skilljar–s board of directors. Chuck Stonecipher, also a partner at Trilogy, has joined the board as an observer.
Skilljar is a cloud-based Learning Management System (LMS) for companies to educate their customers and partners. The online training platform accelerates customer onboarding and engagement by enabling multimedia course creation, an intuitive and mobile-responsive learning environment, and automated CRM data integrations. Founded in 2013, the company is located in Seattle, WA and is a graduate of 2013. For more information visit
Trilogy Equity Partners is a closely held investment firm based in Bellevue, Washington. Their roots include the formation and leadership of some of the largest mobile operators in the United States as well as other global technology and wireless companies. Trilogy Equity applies a team-oriented approach, built upon deep operational experience and a flexible capital structure to help entrepreneurs build great companies. More information on the firm can be viewed online at
For Skilljar
Jeff Denenholz
206-437-9810
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