London-based MOONHUB, a pioneer in VR workplace training, has raised $2.6 million in seed funding. The financing round was led by global proptech VC Pi Labs, with participation from Ada Ventures, 1818 Venture Capital and numerous angel investors. With this latest deal, Pi Labs has completed 22 investments with capital deployed from its $90 million fund.
This year, the company participated in Pi Labs’ Growth Programme, to scale up its operations and conduct further product development with the help of global tech experts, advisors and investors.
MOONHUB intends to use the proceeds of the round to further transform workplace learning across all sectors through virtual reality (VR). After establishing itself in the UK, the startup is all set to expand its operations into the burgeoning global VR workplace training market, which is estimated to grow to $294 billion by 2030 by reports.
Prior to this, in 2020, MOONHUB received backing from Miles Jacobson, Director of Sports Interactive, the firm behind the Football Manager game series, as part of its $355,000 pre-seed round.
Faisal Butt, CEO and Founder of Pi Labs, said: “Ever since we invited MOONHUB to be a part of Pi Labs’ 2022 Growth Programme, we’ve, quite frankly, been ‘over the moon’ to be a part of its ambitious journey from such an early stage. We see in Dami, Vinh and Hannah the entrepreneurial flair and innovative abilities that will enable MOONHUB to become a global leader in VR training technology.
Dami Hastrup, CEO of MOONHUB, said: “This is an exciting time for MOONHUB. We’re propelling ourselves forward at even greater speeds with this seed round and we have some excellent investors and backers joining us on our journey. Our patent being filed five years ago shows that MOONHUB has always had a laser-focused vision on what VR training in the workplace should look like. As we grow our client list and move to expand our off-the-shelf training library, we’re thrilled to grow our team in our pursuit to solidify ourselves as a go-to name in the VR training space.”
Matt Penneycard, Partner, Ada Ventures, said: “David Fisayo had angel invested in MOONHUB as part of Ada’s Angel’s programme, and he did a great job of convincing Check and me that now is the time to back enterprise VR. The interest levels and traction with corporate clients is off the scale, accelerated by the lock-explosion in remote working over the past couple of years. We’ve seen enterprise VR solutions over the years, and never been convinced the demand side was big enough. All that has changed and MOONHUB has launched skywards as a result! We’re thrilled to work with Pi Labs and to back Dami and the team at this exciting time.”
Revolutionises workplace training with VR
Founded in 2016 by Dami Hastrup, Vinh Ly and Hannah Sutcliffe in London, MOONHUB’s VR training platform creates a 360-degree learning environment with quantitative performance data collected on dashboards for managers to analyse. The real-life role play situations enable effective knowledge transfer.
With VR training set to transform how companies onboard and upskill employees, MOONHUB is looking to capitalise on its first mover advantage as corporates seek to increase workforce retention, performance and engagement.
To date, the company has since built a client portfolio, including Just Eat, Here East in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Royal Opera House, Rawbank, Sports Interactive and more.
Why opt for VR training?
There are many benefits associated with VR training as compared to traditional training methods. As per the consultancy giant Accenture, VR training has the potential to result in 75 percent higher knowledge retention rates compared to the 5 to 10 percent provided by traditional learning methods.
Also, consultancy firm PwC reported that VR training has completed the training four times quicker than conventional methods. Also, learners who used VR training are 275 percent more confident in applying the training knowledge in the workplace.
MOONHUB’s VR workplace training can be deployed across multiple sectors, to accelerate onboarding, improve performance and enhance soft skills.
