Studytube, a Dutch online learning platform, has acquired Springest, a European training-booking marketplace. Simultaneously it’s closed a $30 million Series B investment round led by Energy Impact Partners (EIP) and existing investor Verdane Capital. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Studytube offers mid-sized and large enterprises an online learning and development platform through a SaaS-enabled marketplace, providing courses from third-party providers.
By adding Springest, Studytube will add more than 30 clients, including T-Mobile, Vattenfall, Aegon, NS, Eneco and STORK, and will now have over 300 mid-size to large enterprises across various industries, said the company. It also expands its presence into Germany, Belgium, the Nordics and the U.K. Studytube now has over 180 employees, working across offices in Amsterdam, Berlin and Kharkiv, with plans to soon open offices in the Nordics.
The latest investment round will be to scale up staff and make more strategic acquisitions in Europe.
Studytube CEO Homam Karimi said: “Thanks to the Springest acquisition, our portfolio has instantly grown to over 8,000 learning providers that offer over 250,000 online and offline learning products. In 2021, a total of 50 million euros worth of learning products were procured through our marketplaces.”
Springest CEO Ruben Timmermans said: “Springest offers companies and their employees the most comprehensive European training database. By combining our database with Studytube’s online learning and development platform, organizations utilizing Springest can search, find and book courses, but also easily organize, manage, and deliver their learning & development in one place.”
Nazo Moosa, managing partner Europe at EIP said: “The European edtech market is crowded with single-point software solutions. Studytube is the first to offer a fully integrated learning platform, consisting of a learning management system, a learning experience platform, an integrated authoring tool and a learning marketplace. This makes Studytube the perfect company to integrate other successful single-point software solutions. Together with their relentless focus on a superior product, we believe Studytube is going to be one of the winners in the European edtech space.”
Studytube competes with Docebo, LearnUpon, Cornerstone and Go1.
Karimi told me: “Studytube competes because our learning management system is fully comprehensive with in depth reporting, qualification management and easy automation of complex business processes. This makes it able to handle compliance-driven sectors such as healthcare”.
“We use smart recommendations and social learning alongside an intuitive learning experience. Many other LMSs often forget about this aspect of the user experience, they are built only to manage learning not to inspire,” he said.