Future of work and learning VC firm Emerge has closed $73 million for its oversubscribed global early-stage Fund II, backed by 100+ of the world’s best future of work and learning operators.

The second fund more than triples the investment from its first, bringing Emerge’s total assets under management to $100 million.

I spoke to Nic Newman, General Partner of Emerge, to find out more.

A way to democratise opportunity

As Europe’s only future of work and learning specialist early-stage fund, Emerge was founded to democratise access to opportunity. The company is focused on education and the future of workplace learning.

Newman contends:

“We believe that investing in founders who are revolutionising future of work and learning is the most impactful way to level the playing field.”

Over the past decade, Emerge has invested in 80+ companies, empowering over 31 million people worldwide and generating a valuation of over $2 billion.

Newman sees AI as a great leveller in future of work and learning, recounting that a decade ago, edtech was largely driven by founders who were ex-teachers or people with a background in learning and development, “alongside an ok technical founder, often with a business model that was likely a mixture of services and SaaS. That has changed now Today’s founders in this sector are technically advanced and building highly scalable companies around large language models.”

“We know from Bloom’s 2 Sigma problem that anybody who gets one-to-one tutoring performs two standard deviations better than students educated in a classroom environment (an effect score of 2x).

But, of course, that’s unscalable. You can’t do that in a classroom or workforce training environment.”

Newman counters,”But when you’ve got a teacher or workplace coach with an AI tool that helps them prepare for and facilitate one-to-one learning, suddenly you’re democratising access for individualised learning help. And that’s what we find really exciting.”

However, the company doesn’t invest in companies that increase inequality (such as tutoring companies that cost $5,000 to $7000 per student). AI has the potential to decrease the digital divide, but we must invest mindfully to achieve this

“AI is creating huge opportunities in how we learn and navigate our career — because we’re changing careers more often — and lastly, AI will be at the centre of how we work better, more productively, and more happily so we need to learn how to work effectively alongside it or be left behind.”

Emerge sees future investment priorities for the firm, including workplace talent assessment and selection and career navigation pathways, as well as support and transition in the shift out of roles
displaced by AI.

Not your typical investors

Emerge’s partners defy the conventional investor profile.

“Education was our escape”; says Newman, whose father was a truck
driver. ‘

“I’m the first in my family to attend university.”

The partners are immigrants, working-class kids and refugees for whom education was the path to a better life.

A unique venture partner community

Emerge is a community-powered investor. Unlike other VCs, Emerge is supported by 100+ Venture Partners—operators who have built future-of-work and learning companies and providers. These include the co-founders and CEOs of Udemy, Degreed, Trilogy, Beamery, Go1, Coursera, Busuu, Kahoot, Andela, Docebo, and Springboard, as well as the CHROs and CLOs of Fortune 500 companies such as Kraft Heinz, IBM, Boeing, and McDonald’s.

Newman shared:

“We don’t mind backing founders from the earlier stages. We want founders to not worry about investment at those initial Pre-Seed and Seed stages and just focus on building, and we don’t invest in Series A because we’ve got so many relationships with series A people to help them raise their round.”

At Emerge, Venture Partners engage with portfolio companies throughout their entire lifecycle, focusing on accelerating their journey to product-market fit and Series A and beyond.

They inform Emerge’s market research, source deals, support the diligence process, co-invest as angels, become company advisors, and even join their boards and customers.

More than half of the Venture Partner community is based in the US, powering Emerge’s strategy to find the best founders in Europe and turbocharge their expansion into the US and global markets.

The closing of Fund II follows multiple successful exits for Emerge, including Zavvy’s acquisition by Deel earlier this year. Numerous portfolio companies, including Edurino and Unibuddy, have also seen significant up-rounds.

Investments already out of Fund II include Colossyan, an AI video platform for workplace learning, which announced a $22M Series A with new investors.

Investors in Fund II include KfW Capital, Laerdal Invest, Jacobs Foundation and Southern New Hampshire University.