Romanian e-learning platform Houston raises EUR 200,000m to expand in US
Romanian startup Houston, which develops a learning platform for remote teams, has raised EUR 200,000m to further enhance its products and expand in foreign markets, particularly in the US. The funding round was joined Lumus Investments, a women-only union of CEE business angels, Overkill, a Latvian investment found, and four of the company’s first Beta clients. The company is targeting funding of EUR 0.35-0.5m this summer.
“The investment attracted helps us to develop our plan to provide companies with a tool to help their virtual teams learn, come up with better ideas, make wiser decisions and execute tasks more efficiently. The fact that almost half of Beta customers have become our investors confirms the usefulness of our product. We are also pleased to announce the exit of our product from the Beta version”, says Robert Blaga, founder and CEO of Houston.
Houston’s management estimates revenue of one million euros by 2022.
Houston is the developer of a learning platform based on an algorithm that measures how employees’ behavior changes once they have gained new knowledge. The company was launched in 2020 by Robert Blaga (37), an expert with 10+ years of training experience in companies such as Michelin or Brainiup.
A platform that changes online learning
Houston focuses on practicing new behaviors in teams of three to six people instead of classic solutions that focus on sessions with single individuals. The platform is based on an algorithm that measures employees’ behavior after completing a learning module of 30-60 minutes. Subsequently, the program compares the team’s score with a global score based on analysis of over 250 groups. Studying 224 teams that ran a sequential program in Houston, the algorithm deteted an average efficiency increase of 28% after 60 minutes spent on the platform.
The company’s product is targeted at the HR departments of large companies and the providers of training and development programs. Currently, the platform can be used by five to 1,000 people simultaneously, but the company’s management wants to increase the capacity to 5,000 people by July this year.
Pfizer, Microsoft, Deloitte tested the platform
Some of the companies that tested the platform include Deloitte, Continental Automotive, Pfizer, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Sony. Since the beginning of this year, the platform’s user rate has been growing by 56% each month and the number of employees using the platform has increased from 300 in January to 1,700 in April.
