AntWalk: Closing the Workforce Skill Gap
Why GSV led the financing of a global startup working to reimagine corporate learning & development for the knowledge economy.
The aftermath of the global pandemic has a name: The Great Resignation. Tens of millions worldwide have quit their jobs — a reality that poses a severe challenge for the global economy.
However, even more critical for the economy now is the “Great Reskilling.” In the next several years, 85 million jobs will disappear, and 97 million new jobs will take their place. According to the McKinsey Global Survey, 90% of executives say that their organizations face skill gaps. Companies need new learning solutions to develop and maintain talent for the emerging knowledge economy.
Now more than ever, investing in these learning solutions is essential. Today we are excited to announce that GSV led AntWalk’s $7.5M Series A financing alongside our friends and existing investors, Matrix Partners and Y Combinator. Founded in 2019 by experts in the learning industry, AntWalk aims to close the skill gap for workers in the knowledge economy by leveraging the expertise of knowledge workers.
Joybroto Ganguly, Basav Nagur, Sriramkumar Sundararaman, Sumit Gupta, and Sudhanshu Shekhar all have passion for learning and technology. Joy founded a startup focused on serving education organizations back in 2008. Sriram worked on strategy at Reliance-Jio. At McKinsey, Joy, Basav and Sriram all specialized in digital transformation projects, where they helped clients build knowledge-based teams. Their work with enterprises showed them that the current corporate learning and development model is ineffective; so they decided to build AntWalk.
“We named the company AntWalk because we are inspired by the way ants communicate and share intelligence when they walk, reflecting collaborative learning.”
- Joybroto Ganguly, Co-founder & CEO, AntWalk
AntWalk helps clients reimagine L&D. The startup is a B2B knowledge and training platform, built upon a network of 4,000+ industry professionals. The experts work at companies such as Microsoft, Nike, and Disney. They power AntWalk’s live cohort-based courses, one-on-one coaching, and in the flow of work asynchronous activities. This blended, experiential approach yields demonstrable learning outcomes. For example, after completing an AntWalk program, inside sales trainees at a healthcare company doubled their call conversion percentages from 17% to 34%. AntWalk fits squarely within GSV’s theme of “ROE” (Return on Education).
AntWalk boasts an NPS of 75 among its clients, which include companies in financial services, healthcare, retail, information technology, and manufacturing. Attendance and completion rates are over 80%. Popular training areas include business development, customer success, product management, general management, digital marketing, data engineering & analytics and core technology. This year AntWalk aims to turbocharge L&D for over 100 global companies.
“GSV Ventures is proud to align with Joy and the team, who bring passion and purpose to one of the toughest challenges in the corporate world — reskilling and upskilling employees to match dynamic job demands.”
- Deborah Quazzo, Managing Partner, GSV Ventures
