Upskilling Platform CoRise Launches with $8.5M Seed

A new online upskilling platform called CoRise has just been launched from stealth with $8.5 million in seed funding.

The CoRise platform contains live online courses and an online community for businesses and individuals to gain the technical skills to stay competitive in today’s business world. The company says the courses are cohort and project based and are taught by industry experts from major technology companies. Examples include a Python crash course taught by a Google engineer and a data-centric deep learning class taught by a deep learning manager at Apple. Another course, “Data Modeling for the Modern Warehouse” taught by a senior analytics engineer at GitLab, promises students will “develop a vocabulary to describe the different elements of business processes, create artifacts to elucidate and document the business intelligence system, and learn how to handle common data modeling use cases.”

The platform also features an online community for peer-to-peer learning and support. The company says the platform leverages AI technology to ensure student success and identifies who may need extra help and in what form.

“The world economic forum estimates that over 1 billion jobs will be transformed by technology, with machine learning and data science among the domains leading the charge. But the demand for top talent in these technical areas is outpacing supply,” said Julia Stiglitz, CEO and co-founder, CoRise. “This growing skills gap has forced organizations and individuals to choose between high-cost live training for a select few, or scalable, self-paced platforms that struggle with engagement. CoRise is on a mission to break this trade-off, creating scalable but impactful training that allows professionals to acquire the most in-demand skills.”

CoRise was founded by Stiglitz, Sourabh Bajaj, and Jacob Samuelson, each of whom has experience in education and machine learning at companies such as Coursera, Google Brain, Teach for America, GSV Ventures, and Neeva. Stiglitz was one of the first ten employees at Coursera, another online technology skills platform.

The company is currently offering a 2-week crash course beginning Oct. 24 for SQL, included free with membership. Taught by CoRise software engineer and co-founder Bajaj, the course will introduce SQL, its capabilities and uses, and how to start writing queries. After completing the course, CoRise promises learners will be ready to tackle basic SQL questions and will be prepared for further courses in the subject.

These are a few of the upcoming courses available on CoRise. Source: CoRise

CoRise says students from over 500 companies, including Spotify, Lyft, EA, and Walmart have completed career-accelerating courses on the platform. Some organizations are using the platform to upskill their workforce. Course completion rates are at 78%, and 94% of learners say the skills they acquired from CoRise will lead to increased job success.

“CoRise had the best results with our employees of any learning platform that I have ever used,” said Rebecca Scales, head of technical learning and development, Noom, and former head of technical L&D at Expedia. “Technical training has become a business imperative and with that I need solutions that drive real outcomes. CoRise is on the cutting edge of learning, and I am thrilled to be partnering with them.”

CoRise also announced it raised $8.5 million in seed funding led by Greylock Partners and GSV Ventures, with participation from Cowboy Ventures as well as Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind and Inflection AI, and Greg Brockman, co-founder of Open AI.

“CoRise is in the vanguard of a key evolution in workforce digital learning as it moves to ‘must have’ delivery. Enterprises are desperate to fill highly skilled technical jobs and employees are demanding pathways to career mobility and job satisfaction,” said Deborah Quazzo, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of GSV Ventures. “CoRise brilliantly addresses each side of this equation delivering a social learning experience for acquiring high end technology skills. In doing this, they are achieving industry leading outcomes for employer and employee in a model that will ultimately reach millions of learners. At GSV we believe this scaled workforce learning with a purpose is the future.”

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