As we’ve prophesied in recent years, every company will be an edtech company, and every industry will need verticalized edtech solutions that provide training and reskilling tailored to the needs of its workforce.
These two theses recently came together in a couple of new investments we made to support the future of work: one solving a longstanding pain point for companies hiring and retaining talent, and another that will play a critical role in ensuring we have the skilled labor needed for the future of our technology and communications infrastructure.
Take2 AI Co-Founders Yaniv Shimoni (left) and Kaushik Narasimhan
First, Take2. Founded by Kaushik Narsimhan and Yaniv Shimoni, the New York-based startup is tackling one of the most acute pain points for many companies: recruiting and keeping good salespeople. High-volume sales roles account for roughly 14% of all jobs in the U.S., but 1 in 3 salespeople churn each year — three times more than any other occupation. It’s a constant headache for employers and recruiters.
Take2 is solving this problem by generating tailor-made simulations of real-world sales scenarios that help vet job applicants for skills, behavioral attributes and culture fit. By leveraging generative AI, Take2 AI recreates company and role specific sales scenarios that not only immerse job applicants in the role, but also provide high-signal performance data to employers — a game changer for high-volume sales roles.
We’ve long been bullish on skills-based hiring, and Take2 has already shown how AI-powered simulations and assessments can lead to a win-win for both candidates and employers. One of its early customers, a solar energy company, saw the 90-day attrition of their sales representatives fall from 58% to 15% within four months of using Take2 AI.
We are delighted to co-lead Take2’s seed round along with SemperVirens. They were also backed by HR leaders from some of the biggest employers in the world: Visa, Disney, HP and Google, to name just a few. Check out coverage of Take2’s funding round here.
LabLabee team
Our other new investment, Lablabee, is establishing itself as the premier training and talent solution for telecommunications, at a time when the industry is undergoing major transformations.
Today, telecom networks need to handle more data than ever before, driven by rapid adoption and technological advances in 5G, IoT, cloud computing, AR/VR and AI. This is transforming how services are developed, deployed, and managed, and requires telecom professionals to reskill and upskill. Already in the U.S. there is a shortage of skilled professionals who can build and support 5G wireless technology. Other global technology trends — including the move towards Open RAN, a new telecom infrastructure — will only accelerate demand for workers with up-to-date telecommunication skills.
There are 200,000 telecom jobs in the U.S. alone that need to be filled soon in order to hit government target timelines, but attracting workers has been a challenge. One problem is simple awareness. The general populace is largely unaware of the massive broadband build-out that is underway to upgrade our telecom infrastructure. There’s also a lot of fragmentation in hiring approaches. And potential employees are not provided with a clear path on how to obtain the necessary training to work in telecom.
This is where Lablabee comes in. The company offers hands-on virtual labs and assessments to help aspiring and established telecom engineers to acquire and stay up to date with the skills and tools needed for the job. These immersive labs include content and live support chat and technical assistance to allow students to learn and practice in real-world scenarios. They are tailored to specific configuration, deployment and maintenance operations that a telecom engineer needs to execute in their work. Check out CRN’s coverage of their funding round for more details about their offerings.
The company was founded by Samir Taharoui and Mahfoud Sidi Ali, both of whom have extensive experience working in global telecom giants including Orange and Nokia. The idea of starting LabLabee came from their own frustrating experiences, both as telecom engineers and as trainers for this work.
Lablablee is based in Paris but its footprint is global. They offer these virtual labs to telecom operators around the globe, from some of the largest Telcos in Europe like Orange, Bouygues Telecom and A1, and in Middle East and Africa, like Etisalat and Ooredoo. We will be supporting LabLabee in hiring and expanding from Europe to the US and even further globally.
We are incredibly proud to support Lablabee in their seed round, joined by our friends at Brighteye Ventures as well as industry experts and angel investors.
