Workera Secures $23.5m in Series B funding: What's next for Skills Intelligence?
At Workera, we’re committed to helping organizations like Samsung, Siemens Energy, and the US Air Force better identify and upskill their talent by providing a deep understanding of their workforce. We’re delighted to have secured $23.5 million in our Series B round of funding led by Jump Capital with participation from Sozo Ventures and existing investors NEA, Owl Ventures and AI Fund.
With this injection of capital, we’re able to evolve our skills intelligence platform, empowering leaders to make better, more informed talent development decisions at a greater pace than ever before. But what does the future look like for skills intelligence, and how can we play our part in it?
The value of skills intelligence
Skills intelligence refers to the ability to identify, assess, and develop skills effectively. It involves the capacity to analyze and understand the skills required for a particular task or job and to evaluate the skills of individuals or groups against these requirements.
Kian Katanforoosh, the founder of Workera, believes in the ever-growing importance of solutions that embrace and interpret skills data to help individuals and organizations make the absolute most of their potential. “Technology is advancing faster than ever. New tools, like ChatGPT, shake up industries every year. But skills aren't keeping up,” he explains. “Companies capable of upskilling talent at market-speed will reinvent themselves and build the future. Others will risk being disrupted.”
Andrew Ng, the chairman of the board for Workera, emphasizes the importance of using increasingly refined data to maximize impact: “Using deep learning and language models, Workera’s technology makes getting accurate and granular data on people’s skills an efficient process. Assessments help you learn what are your strengths and weaknesses, thereby providing deep skills intelligence that leads to actionable insights for both individuals and organizations.”
How can businesses leverage skills intelligence?
“The first step in workforce transformation is grasping what skills you have,” said Mike McMahon, co-founder and managing partner of Jump Capital, which has led Workera's Series B financing round. “Unlike most inference-based solutions derived from degrees or work experiences, Workera provides a high-fidelity signal and a powerful engine to target and accelerate learning and steer talent acquisition.”
Belcorp, a multinational beauty company going through a digital transformation, has been using Workera since the May 2022. In that time, the organization has accelerated the skills development of their data engineers by an estimated 30%, while their software engineers have improved their skills by 57%. The chief technology, data and digital officer of Belcorp, Venkat Gopalan, says that Workera enabled them boost their team’s confidence in delivering critical projects, and to improve project quality in general.
What’s the future of skills intelligence?
With the increased use of AI, machine learning and big data analytics to collect and analyze data on workforce trends and skills gaps, organizations will be able to anticipate and prepare for future workforce needs, and to develop targeted interventions to address skills gaps that equip their workforce with the skills they need to stay competitive in the future job market.
Here at Workera, we’re future-proofing our offer by increasing our comprehensive ontology of over 7,000 skills to include soft skills assessments, such as leadership and management. Alongside this latest capital infusion, we’re already rolling out major updates to customers that allow them to create skills-based career pathways in just a few clicks – helping their employees upskill faster than ever. The pathways are adaptive and goal-oriented, providing learners with a highly-personalized and motivating experience. It’s all enhanced by a richer skill assessment experience with more frequent check-ins, which gives leaders even better ongoing measurement of their workforce’s skills.
For press-related questions, reach out to tberg@workera.ai
