Cognota, the LearnOps platform that lets corporate learning and development teams manage end-to-end operations and measure ROI, has announced the close of $5.5 million USD in Series A funding. The round was led by Grotech Ventures, with participation from IDEA Fund Partners, BDC Capital, Generation Ventures, CEAS Investments, Tyton Partners, and notable investors Neal Dempsey and Jay Steinfeld.

Earlier this year, Cognota also received $1.9 million from FedDev Ontario. The funding will be used to meet accelerating demand from enterprise customers, drive product development, and launch the world's first LearnOps certification program to its community members - free of charge.

Measuring ROI in today's dynamic business landscape is absolutely vital for L&D leaders seeking to highlight the value and tangible impact of investments in relation to business objectives. In an industry that annually expends a staggering $320 billion, such endeavors have transitioned from being optional to becoming a necessity for every L&D team.

Cognota's cutting-edge platform facilitates this process by seamlessly integrating workflows such as intake and program management with budget and resource allocation data, and then uses analytics to help customers make better decisions. By harnessing these capabilities, learning teams can foster a culture of accountability and drive better business outcomes.

"Raising Series A in the current environment is not easy for a startup. The ability to close this round as an up round with no liquidity preferences validates the value Cognota is driving in defining and leading the LearnOps category," said Cognota CEO Ryan Austin. "Learning and development is increasingly a driver for performance, and our platform provides the essential infrastructure for organizations to save time, increase output, and measure impact. Our vision is to power learning operations for all enterprises globally."

Cognota focuses on the most important task for learning leaders and CLO's: streamlining the process of managing learning priorities and resources with its purpose-built operating system. It recently launched partnerships with workplace software providers such as Schoox, ROI Institute, Bluewater Learning, and Infopro Learning to offer more innovative solutions to L&D teams.

"With Cognota, what used to take months can now be done in days," said Steve Fredrick, General Partner at Grotech Ventures. Cognota customers report seeing the time it takes to respond to training requests cut down by 90% and the time it takes to manage learning projects reduced by 70% - and at half the cost of current, disparate processes.