Accenture, Workday Invest in Strivr

SANTA CLARA &&num;8212&semi; Strivr, a platform for enterprise-scale Virtual Reality (VR) solutions, announced that Accenture and Workday Ventures have made strategic investments as part of the company’s latest funding round&period; As an extension to its Series B round, this &dollar;35 million round is being led by Georgian, with participation of additional new investors including Bank of America and Gaingels&period; &NewLine;The investments will help advance Strivr’s position as the platform of choice for elevating workforce performance through VR&period;&NewLine;Strivr also announced it is now part of Accenture Ventures’ Project Spotlight, an engagement and investment program focused on investing in companies that create or apply disruptive enterprise technologies&period; Additionally, Strivr has joined the Workday Software Partner Program, and intends to integrate its immersive learning platform with Workday Content Cloud, which will help serve the needs of enterprises facing challenges in training, upskilling, and reskilling their workforces&period;&NewLine;With major shifts over the past two years including remote work, the Great Resignation, and the potential of the Metaverse for virtual collaboration, working norms and employee expectations are being redefined&period; Organizations are challenged with recruiting, supporting, and retaining workers, making investments in more engaging and impactful skills development programs an essential initiative across every industry&period;&NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;New approaches to workforce development are engaging employees in more dynamic ways and providing them with critical skills development opportunities they need to advance,” said Tom Lounibos, managing director of Accenture Ventures&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We are now at an inflection point, where immersive technologies are taking center stage in driving the future of work&period; With this strategic investment in Strivr, we are helping to fuel this future to enable enterprises to build more engaged, connected, and higher performing workforces&period;”&NewLine;Immersive experiences are already influencing how enterprises are engaging and skilling their workforces&period; VR has become an effective way to train distributed and remote employees by replicating real-world workplace scenarios in a safe and controlled virtual environment&period; Metrics like learner engagement and retention from VR training can augment traditional virtual learning methods and easily go head-to-head with instructor-led in-person training&period;&NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;To address the tight labor market, we believe that a skills-based people strategy is essential for both employees and employers today and in the future,” said Mark Peek, managing director and head of Workday Ventures&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Together, Workday and Strivr will be able to help customers reskill their workforces through advanced VR solutions that will give employees the training they need to stay engaged at their organization&period;”&NewLine;With over 1 million workers trained in VR, Strivr has partnered with companies including Bank of America, MGM Resorts, Sprouts, Verizon, and Walmart to teach employees new skills faster and more efficiently, and deliver deeper data-driven insights to further drive talent development&period;&NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;As enterprises increasingly take on a more connected, people-first strategy, building skills and engaging employees are the two most critical tools HR and L&&num;038&semi;D leaders have in their tool belt,” said Derek Belch, founder and CEO of Strivr&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;With strategic investments from industry leaders like Accenture and Workday Ventures, we will continue to advance our vision of elevating employee performance through immersive experience, and delivering the enterprise-scale platform to connect the immersive worlds of tomorrow&period;”&NewLine;

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