Springboard raises $31 million to retool the technology workforce

Mentor-guided online training platform Springboard has raised $31 million in a series B round of funding led by Telstra Ventures.

The raise comes as demand for online learning has surged due to the COVID-19 crisis, with Udemy recently reporting that course enrollment had risen by 425% during the lockdown and Udacity disclosing that its annual recurring revenue (ARR) had grown by 260% for the first half of 2020.

Founded in 2013, San Francisco-based Springboard focuses specifically on plugging the technology talent gap, offering a range of courses across coding, analytics, design, and data science & AI.

Prices vary, but as an example, the Data Analytics Career Track costs $5,500 when paid up front, which gets the student around 400 hours of curated curriculum which must be completed within six months — it also comes with a job guarantee. There are additional payment options too, including monthly or even deferring it until the graduate starts a new job. The UI/UX design course, on the other hand, costs around $10,000 when paid up front.

Skilling up

Traditional university-type institutions and online education platforms have often been criticized for not equipping their students with the right skills and tools to thrive in the workforce, something that Springboard is keen to push as one of its main differentiators.

The data analytics career track, for instance, was designed in partnership with Microsoft after the duo announced a tie-up last December alongside Springboard’s $11 million series A round. The program’s main aim is to train 5,000 students for analytics jobs in the coming years, and focus on important non-technical skills such as problem-solving, communication, and strategic thinking.

Every Springboard student is allocated a personal mentor who works in a field related to the course, with participants stemming from illustrious companies such as Oracle, Amazon, Uber, and Airbnb, who provide one-to-one feedback to their students on a weekly basis. And this is one of the major selling points of Springboard, with its tight-knit links with technology companies previously leading to job offers from the likes of Google, Microsoft, Facebook, IBM, Zoom, and Verizon.

Moreover, while many companies have had to pivot their business models to support social distancing during the global pandemic, Springboard has facilitated remote education since its inception, which puts it in a strong position to capitalize on this so-called “new normal.”

Prior to now, Springboard had raised around $22 million, and with another $31 million in the bank the company is well-financed to “double down on student employability” by creating stronger partnerships with employers and building new products to help students enter the workforce.

“With this new capital, we see an opportunity to double down on our industry-leading human-centric approach to delivering career outcomes — not only better support our learners, but also partner with universities and employers, enabling them to navigate this online-first economic reality,” Gautam Tambay, Springboard cofounder and CEO, told VentureBeat.

New tools

Among the new products is a “hireability forecaster,” which gives an early indication of how likely a student will be to find a job based on the progress that they are (or aren’t) making — this is already being offered to prospective students. Additionally, Springboard is developing a “student-job fit recommender,” which it touts as an AI-driven job matching tool which automatically recommends open roles at Springboard’s partner companies based on each student’s background and skill set.

Elsewhere, Springboard is developing a new tool called “Springboard introductions,” which is a browser plugin designed to give students “targeted introductions and job referrals” from its community of mentors and alumni. For example, if someone is applying for a job through LinkedIn, Springboard may surface individuals already working at the company in question who can recommend the new Springboard graduate for the role — referrals are known to boost a candidate’s chances of standing out in the application vetting process.

Above: Springboard’s new Introductions browser plugin

Both the recommender and introductions products are currently in development, and are expected to launch around mid-September.

Tambay said that Springboard had seen a 54% growth in student enrollment between March and June of this year, a figure that rises to 352% when comparing the year-on-year figures between June 2019 and June 2020. And it’s these kinds of numbers that financial backers like to see. “In addition to increased student demand, we are also seeing a ton of inbound investor interest in our space,” Tambay added.

Indeed, the surge in demand for remote learning and upskilling platforms has kicked countless VC investors into action, with Coursera recently securing another $130 million at a $2.5 billion valuation, while India’s Toppr locked down $46 million.

That Springboard has managed to raise a sizable follow-on funding round less than nine months after its previous raise merely underscores the value that investors see in remote learning, as people scramble to retool for in-demand industry roles.