Image credits: 5Mins
London-based 5Mins, a gamified learning platform for employees, announced on Monday that it has secured $5.7M (€5.7M) in a Seed round of funding led by AlbionVC. Other investors, including Chalfen Ventures, Portfolio Ventures, Blue Lion Global, Edenred Capital Partners (the venture arm of Edenred), and notable angel investors, also participated in the round.
5Mins says it will utilise the capital injection to further develop its platform capabilities, such as skill analytics, API integrations, and the learning marketplace, and increase its global customer base and impact.
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Tik-Tok of workplace learning
Saurav Chopra, who previously co-founded the employee engagement platform Perkbox, established 5Mins to make online corporate learning courses more engaging and fun.
According to 5Mins, the online corporate learning course completion rates are significantly lower than traditional in-person learning, with a completion rate of only 5 to 20 per cent. Additionally, online platforms have lower monthly engagement rates, at less than 10 per cent.
5Mins claims to have an average course completion rate of 85 per cent and a monthly engagement rate of over 50 per cent due to removing key friction points through its next-gen learning tool.
The upskilling platform does this by presenting workplace learning in a TikTok-style feed and uses intelligent personalisation.
Chopra, who is also the CEO of 5Mins, says, “Our mission is to help companies build a learning culture so their people can unlock their true potential, and we have come a long way in a short period. We are building the first global learning superapp that companies of all sizes can use to upskill everyone, improve employee retention and drive innovation.”
The platform implements science-backed learning methods such as chunking, spaced repetition, and active recall to boost long-term learning effectiveness and knowledge retention. In addition, with gamification and social features, 5Mins enables employees and teams to stay engaged in learning.
5Mins also develops granular insights into each individual’s learning interests, priorities, and styles, allowing team managers and HR leaders to guide their employees to courses and deeper-learning options.
Based on what a user is interested in, the platform recommends further learning opportunities like courses, books, and coaching through its marketplace.
Currently, the platform features 15,000+ bite-sized lessons from 150+ educators and coaches worldwide, covering 100+ essential technical skills and power skills for the workplace.
Since its inception in March 2022, more than 100,000+ lessons have been watched on the platform, claims the company. 5Mins is now being used in 80+ countries, from scaleups such as Spenmo and Beam Mobility in APAC to Smart Pension and Cushon in the UK.
The company says it has witnessed a 20X growth in its Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR).
About AlbionVC
AlbionVC is a Venture Capital firm with long-term capital and scale-up expertise partners. The company partners with early-stage B2B software and healthcare companies in the UK. AlbionVC manages approximately $1B of venture funds, currently invested in over 50 companies.
Nadine Torbey, Investment Director at AlbionVC, says, “5Mins sits at the crossroads of two massive shifts: employee engagement on one side and ‘TikTokisation of everything’ on the other. The impressive commercial momentum and next-level user engagement the company has been experiencing in a short time is a testament that the market is craving more personalised, engaging learning tools. Saurav has a lot of experience in the space, which makes him uniquely well-placed to disrupt this large broken market. We are thrilled to partner with him and the team to achieve this ambitious vision!”
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