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Skilljar co-founders Sandi Lin (left) and Jason Stewart. (Skilljar Photos)
Skilljar, a Seattle startup that sells learning management software to help companies train their customers and partners, has been acquired by Gainsight, a San Francisco customer success startup. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Former Amazon colleagues Sandi Lin and Jason Stewart initially made the startup leap in 2013. Their initial ideas under the company name Everpath — a Yelp for online classes and a platform for independent instructors — didn’t gain much traction.
But their next iteration — which became Skilljar — struck a chord as the entrepreneurs found that enterprise companies needed help building customer education experiences.
Skilljar gives companies new ways to educate customers beyond one-on-one training and how-to videos, helping them build a customizable “Academy” and establish certificate programs. It has more than 400 customers, including LinkedIn, Verizon, and Shopify.
Skilljar raised more than $50 million, including a $33 million Series B round in 2020. Insight Partners, Mayfield, Trilogy Equity Partners, and Shasta Ventures invested in the startup.
Skilljar was ranked No. 65 on the GeekWire 200, our list of top Pacific Northwest tech startups.
Gainsight launched in 2009 and is used by nearly 200 publicly traded companies for customer success, customer education, and community management. Gainsight has acquired five companies since 2018.
“What makes this especially meaningful is that Gainsight gets it,” Stewart wrote on LinkedIn. “They understand the strategic role education plays in customer growth, and they see the power in what we’ve built — the platform, the flexibility, and the scale.”
Lin, who was CEO, spent more than three years at Amazon before launching Skilljar with Stewart, who also spent more than three years at the Seattle tech giant.
In a LinkedIn post, Amy Nam McCullough, managing director at Trilogy, said that the firm was “thrilled” to share news of the acquisition. Trilogy led the company’s seed round a decade ago.
“We’re eager to see the value these combined companies will bring to the customer experience in the years to come,” she wrote.
