Strivr, the company behind an enterprise-focused virtual reality (VR) training platform used by big names like Walmart, Verizon and Bank of America, has raised $35 million in an extension to its $35 million Series B funding round. 30 million previously announced.

The latest cash infusion comes amid growing concerns about the so-called “big quit,” with some 4.3 million American workers quitting their jobs in January alone. Add to the mix growing burnout in the workforce and a broader trend that’s seeing countless employees rethink their life and career goals, and it’s clear why companies may be looking to technologies that not only help attract new workers, but also to retain existing ones.

“Over the past two years, the pandemic has confined many workers to their homes and prompted companies to lay off or furlough much of their workforce,” Strivr CEO Derek Belch told VentureBeat. “This served as a catalyst for people to reassess their goals and careers, which, combined with burnout, a desire for higher pay and a lack of advancement opportunities, resulted in a record number of workers voluntarily quitting. The needs of employees have changed and companies must adapt.”

But how, exactly, could immersive technologies like virtual reality address these problems? Ultimately, it all comes down to self-improvement in what is fast becoming a “remote first” world: people must feel like they are advancing in their chosen careers, whether through betterment skills or upgrading them.

“With the Great Resignation underway, and with no signs of slowing down, training today plays a more critical role than ever in retaining and attracting talent,” explained Belch.

The Striv platform

Founded in 2015, Strivr provides businesses with everything they need to deliver training through virtual reality, including software, content, hardware, and related services such as strategy and planning. The platform combines learning theory, data science, spatial design, creator tools and more, addressing the specific needs of the business across devices and locations, while providing analytics to gain insights into usage and the participation.

“At our core, we are an immersive learning platform – our platform enables companies to scale and measure the effectiveness of virtual reality in headsets,” Belch said. “We partner with our clients on all aspects of implementation, from discovery, strategic planning, curriculum design, content production, experience creation, configuration, adoption, and performance analysis” .

It’s worth noting that Strivr doesn’t develop its own VR headsets in-house, instead choosing to partner with third-party vendors.

As an example, in 2017, Walmart announced that it would begin training employees in virtual reality using Strivr, and a year later, the company doubled down on this effort when it purchased 17,000 Oculus Go headsets to train employees in its thousands of points allowing staff to practice loading the Pickup Tower, a new online order picking option, before installing it in their stores.

Since Strivr’s original series B funding tranche two years ago, the Santa Clara, California-based company has amassed an impressive list of new clients including MGM Resorts and Bank of America, the latter of which revealed last year. past that would implement virtual reality training. to some 45,000 employees at 4,000 banks in the US, and the financial powerhouse is now going the extra mile in its commitment not just to VR, but to Strivr itself — it’s investing directly in the company as part of the extension. from the B series.

Meanwhile, hospitality and entertainment giant MGM Resorts is using Strivr to train employees at its destinations in Las Vegas, Michigan and New Jersey, with plans to roll things out in the future.

“We look forward to expanding this partnership and using virtual reality to help the hiring process by giving candidates a first-hand look at a job before they commit to applying,” Belch explained.

Separately, the series B extension round was led by Georgian, with additional investments from Accenture Ventures, Workday Ventures and Gaingels.

employee development

There are several players in the VR-based training sphere, including Talespin, which recently raised $20 million, and Interplay, which closed an $18 million funding round last year. Taken together, all of this activity suggests that there is a growing demand for virtual reality in the workplace, whether it’s for employee onboarding, health and safety training, customer service training, or simply to improve “soft” skills. ” of workers, such as empathy.

“As a result of increased stress from the pandemic, empathy became a highly in-demand skill: We helped Walmart provide immersive empathy training that their employees actively sought out, because they wanted that kind of preparation for the difficult conversations they were having with customers every day,” Belch said. “And that’s another trend we’ve seen: an increased focus on meaningful employee development – ​​learning is no longer a tick box. It’s a strategic advantage that many top executives are using to drive recruitment and retention.”

While the pandemic has likely played a significant role in the adoption of VR by businesses, the growing hype around the Metaverse, fueled by deep-pocketed companies like Meta, is also playing a role, and it seems that virtual reality is finally meeting real life. Use cases outside of “cheat” gaming and peripheral use cases.

“We have witnessed many changes in the last two years, especially with the COVID pandemic changing businesses, changing the way we work and interact with each other, and creating a number of significant socio-economic challenges, not to mention the recent El rise of the Metaverse was huge,” added Belch. “I think what we’ve seen is that VR isn’t just for ‘early adopters’ anymore. Companies across all major industries are now integrating immersive elements into their learning programs across many new and different use cases.”

This is evidenced by the strategic investments that Strivr has attracted from the likes of Bank of America, Workday Ventures, and professional services giant Accenture, which recently purchased 60,000 VR headsets as part of its onboarding and training efforts. The company said thousands of employees will work from its “Nth Floor” business metaverse from day one.

“On our virtual campus, new hires join small teams to participate in immersive activities to bring greater clarity to the kind of work we do, how we do it, and how our culture comes to life on a day-to-day basis,” said Accenture CEO Ventures. Tom Lounibos told VentureBeat. “The metaverse offers the ability to scale active learning with a consistent level of quality, deeper retention and higher employee satisfaction.”

These strategic investments will also see Strivr join Accenture Ventures’ Project Spotlight, as well as the Workday Software Partner Program, which means Strivr will be integrated into the Workday Content Cloud to provide you with a direct link to Workday’s own enterprise customers. .

With another $35 million in the bank, Strivr is well-funded to jumpstart its business as companies across the industry spectrum look for new ways to engage, upskill, and re-skill their distributed workforce; this will include scaling its content offering through its SDK and growing its strategic alliances to develop its content libraries. Additionally, the company is preparing to bring the Strivr portal to all customers in the coming months, which serves as a central conduit for tracking the hardware fleet, managing content, and exploring data and analytics.

“Traditional learning and development methods are not effective, efficient, scalable and data-driven enough for the needs of businesses today and tomorrow,” Belch noted. “Virtual reality enables a ‘learn by doing’ experience, no matter what job, concept or task is being learned.”