CPE Media News (4/10/2019) – Synapse has raised a US $2.5 million seed financing led by Generation Ventures with participation from Ripple Ventures, Differential Ventures, CEAS Investments, Cathexis Ventures, Ideal Ventures and Neal Dempsey. As part of the financing, Laura Lenz of Generation Ventures will join the board.
Founded by CEO Ryan Austin and with offices in Toronto and Mérida, Yucatan, Mexico, Synapse is a provider of technology for the Learning and Development market. The first-of-its-kind platform automates the instructional design process, allowing organizations to quickly transform institutional knowledge into on-demand training.
Synapse intends to use the funding to fuel growth in sales, marketing and product expansion and to hire key personnel.
photo credit: Synapse
News Release
SYNAPSE CLOSES US$2.5M SEED ROUND LED BY GENERATION VENTURES to DRIVE AI INTO CORPORATE LEARNING
April 10, 2019, TORONTO – Synapse, a provider of technology for the Learning and Development market announced today that it closed a US$2.5 million seed financing to fuel growth of its Learning Design System. The first-of-its-kind platform automates the instructional design process, allowing organizations to quickly transform institutional knowledge into on-demand training.
Instructional design is a function that is performed by a few highly-trained individuals, impeding organizations from creating and deploying training at scale. Benchmarks indicate that it can take over 70 hours and up to $10,000 to create a single hour of training.
Generation Ventures led the financing with participation from Ripple Ventures, Differential Ventures, CEAS Investments, Cathexis Ventures, Ideal Ventures and Venture Capitalist Neal Dempsey. As part of the financing, Laura Lenz of Generation Ventures will join the board.
“We are excited about what the future holds for Synapse,” said Lenz. “Synapse’s solution fills an important gap in the market and the team is putting incredible focus in all the right places; people, product, customer value and metrics that support the success of the business”.
The use of artificial intelligence within Synapse’s Learning Design System includes using a recommendation engine that enables subject matter experts and training departments to streamline collaboration and reduce delivery time. The Synapse platform has demonstrated the ability to reduce the cost of developing training by as much as 65%.
“The use of AI in corporate learning is in its infancy, we’re excited to be the first to apply it to the instructional design process,” said CEO Ryan Austin. “This funding will help us accelerate growth as we strive to become a core part of every organization’s learning strategy.”
The funding will be used fuel growth in sales, marketing and product expansion and to hire key personnel.
About Synapse
Synapse’s Learning Design System streamlines the processes associated with planning and developing corporate training programs. Founded in 2016, Synapse has clients across numerous sectors including financial services, oil and gas, retail, healthcare, technology and manufacturing. The platform enables planning and collaboration between subject matter experts (SMEs), instructional designers and training departments so that learning programs can be developed and deployed quickly. Learning teams are able to align learning objectives with assessment and activities to enable rapid instructional design. Synapse ensures that training program planning and development are structured around learning goals and objectives and. For more information about Synapse’s Learning Design System, visit www.getsynapse.com.
More information about the participating investors can be found on their websites as follows: Generation Ventures, Ripple Ventures, Differential Ventures, CEAS Investments, Cathexis Ventures, Ideal Ventures, Neal Dempsey.
For more information contact:
Ellyn Winters-Robinson CMO
Ignition Communications Inc. | Direct: 519-574-2196 | Office: 519-624-2402 | Twitter: @ellynjane | https://ellynwinters.contently.com/