We’re more than halfway through the year and building a future-ready workforce remains a top priority for many organizations. As new technologies and skill requirements evolve, training providers are investing in solutions to help develop talent across the employee lifecycle.

Last quarter, the workforce development sector of the market saw the most activity, reflecting growing investment in workforce readiness and closing critical skills gaps. We also saw notable activity in the performance management, artificial intelligence (AI) and learning services sectors. Let’s take a look at last quarter’s deals.

Workforce Development

The workforce development sector saw five deals last quarter:

• Learning Pool announced the acquisition of WorkStep to help organizations with high-volume frontline staff manage the employee lifecycle within a single, data-driven ecosystem. The acquisition builds on the momentum of Learning Pool’s previous acquisitions of WorkRamp and Elucidat.
• PeopleBench acquired Resilience @ Work, a psychometric framework used to measure and develop workplace resilience, expanding its offering beyond the education sector.
• Stepful, a training platform that helps health systems build, train and retain their workforce, secured $55 million in Series C funding led by Oak HC/FT.
• Acorn announced the acquisition of B Online Learning, an eLearning design and development provider in Australia and New Zealand, to help bridge the gap between learning investment and workforce readiness.
• Herzig Engineering, a provider of electrical safety and reliability services, announced the acquisition of Canada Training Group (CTG), a provider of electrical safety training, electrical maintenance training, arc flash studies and infrared electrical inspections.

Performance Management

Performance management was another area of investment last quarter, as providers continued expanding into integrated talent and people management solutions.

The two deals in this sector reflect the demand for solutions that connect learning and performance to drive better business outcomes:

• Shortly after its acquisition of WorkStep, Learning Pool announced the acquisition of Confirm, an AI-first people development platform. According to the press release, the acquisition “extends Learning Pool’s focus beyond training delivery to real-world performance measurement.”
• Cezanne, a human resources (HR) software provider, acquired workplace learning platform Learn Amp, adding learning, performance management and employee engagement capabilities to its portfolio.

AI in Training

The AI sector has seen consistent activity in recent quarters. In Q2, we saw two deals in this market sector:

• Blify, an AI-native learning platform, announced $2.1 million in funding to accelerate product development and expand its engineering team as it scales its learning platform embedded in Slack, Microsoft Teams and WhatsApp.
• Colibri Group (“Colibri”), a professional education company, announced the acquisition of Audirie, an AI-driven simulation and assessment company focused on helping professionals build real-world skills through conversational practice, personalized assessment and actionable feedback.

Learning Services and Outsourcing

The learning services and outsourcing sector also saw two deals last quarter:

• Cognota, a provider of learning operations software, announced the acquisition of Learnexus, an AI-driven marketplace of over 3,000 L&D specialists, to help organizations “rapidly deploy ‘flash-teams’ on demand and maintain execution capacity,” the press release says.
• Korn Ferry announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with OMERS Private Equity to acquire AMS, a UK-headquartered provider of talent acquisition and consulting services.

Other Deals by Market Sector

Learning Technologies

• Skillsoft announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its Global Knowledge instructor-led training (ILT) business to an affiliate of Enduring Ventures. The transaction has since been
• Coursera announced the completion of its combination with Udemy, bringing together the two learning platforms to expand access to learning content, AI-powered tools and skills development for learners and organizations.

Leadership Training

• Leadership development provider ExecOnline announced the acquisition of Teamraderie, a provider of team development centered around AI transformation.