Strivr, a US-based immersive learning technology spinout of Stanford University, secured $30m in series B funding on Tuesday from investors including Prologis Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of logistics real estate operator Prologis.
Growth equity firm Georgian Partners led the round, which was also backed by Franklin Templeton, GreatPoint Ventures and Alumni Ventures Group. Tyson Baber, a partner at Georgian Partners, has taken a board seat at Strivr.
Strivr has created an immersive learning system that uses virtual reality to help train athletes and employees. It was co-founded by Derek Belch, then an assistant coach for the Stanford football team and Master’s student researching virtual reality.
Encouraged by head coach David Shaw, who had seen promising results from his team using Belch’s initial research, Belch collaborated with his eventual co-founder Jeremy Bailenson, professor and founder of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab.
The series B round pushed the company’s total funding to $51m, it said. Strivr closed a $5m round in 2016 that was led by Signia Venture Partners, which invested alongside carmaker BMW’s corporate venturing unit, BMW i Ventures, and Advancit Capital.
Sporting association National Football League added an undisclosed amount the following year before Strivr secured $16m in a late 2018 round led by GreatPoint Ventures.
– A version of this article first appeared on our sister site, Global Corporate Venturing.

US-based immersive learning technology provider Strivr secured $30m in series B funding on Tuesday from investors including Prologis Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of logistics real estate operator Prologis.

Growth equity firm Georgian Partners led the round, which was also backed by Franklin Templeton, GreatPoint Ventures and Alumni Ventures Group. Tyson Baber, a partner at Georgian Partners, has taken a board seat at Strivr in conjunction with its investment.

Strivr has created an immersive learning system that uses virtual reality to help train employees. It was incubated at Stanford University and its customers include one of its earlier investors, BMW, in addition to Verizon, Walmart, Fidelity and JetBlue.

Derek Belch, Strivr’s founder and CEO, said: “With more than 1.5 million training sessions conducted in VR and over 22,000 headsets deployed across our customer base, Strivr has developed the world’s only end-to-end software platform for the delivery of immersive solutions to elevate workforce learning and performance.

“We are thrilled to leverage this new round of investment led by Georgian Partners to more rapidly accelerate the adoption of immersive learning in the enterprise and take the next step in connecting immersive data to real-world performance improvement.”

The round pushed the company’s total funding to $51m, it said. Strivr closed a $5m round in 2016 that was led by Signia Venture Partners, which invested alongside carmaker BMW’s corporate venturing unit, BMW i Ventures, and Advancit Capital.

Sporting association National Football League added an undisclosed amount the following year before Strivr secured $16m in a late 2018 round led by GreatPoint Ventures.