Mobile learning startup Ed App raises $4 million from SafetyCulture

Education startup Ed App has raised $4 million in funding from workplace safety-focused scaleup SafetyCulture.

Founded by Darren Winterford, the startup has created a learning management system through which companies can, from templates, create courses and lessons for employees for everything from onboarding to ongoing training.  

Taking a mobile-first approach, the startup reported it is facilitating more than 35,000 lessons a day for clients including Mercedes Benz, Mars, Shell, and Pandora.

The funding will go towards growing the company’s user base both in Australia and overseas, and further building out its product offering.

Winterford said, “With 80 percent of our clients based outside of Australia, SafetyCulture’s investment will help us accelerate our plans to grow our customer base locally and continue to expand in the US and Europe.”

Luke Anear, CEO of SafetyCulture, said the decision to invest in Ed App came as he was impressed by the startup’s existing client base, and how the platform offered on-demand training at scale.

“When I was introduced to Ed App I knew it was something I wanted to be a part of. It’s an exciting SaaS business tackling an underserviced part of the market,” he said.

“Finding an effective learning management system is crucial for any business and the fact that Ed App have gone one step further and coupled this with an on-demand mobile-first learning solution is game-changing. We are excited to be part of their journey.”

Anear has joined the startup’s board in hand with the investment.

For SafetyCulture, which itself raised $60 million in funding in May, the investment makes strategic sense, given its own solutions facilitate safety inspections and incident reporting in workplaces.

Also working in the workplace learning space is Brisbane startup GO1, which in August raised $10 million in a funding round led by Seek.

Launched in 2014, Brisbane startup GO1 allows users to browse its marketplace of courses, covering everything from compliance to onboarding and personal development, or create their own. The startup stated it is now hosting more than 500,000 courses and learning resources, with more than 22 million users across clients including Cricket Australia and Adshel having access to its content.

Also a customer is Seek, which has integrated GO1’s offering into its own platform: a job seeker will be presented with relevant courses from GO1 while going through the job search process; if a role requires a particular educational or training requirement, such as first aid skills for example, a corresponding GO1 course will surface.

Image: Darren Winterford. Source: Supplied.