US-based Transfr, a virtual reality-based skills training for middle-skilled careers has raised $40 million in Series C growth capital investment. The round was led by ABS Capital alongside JPMorgan Chase Impact Finance and Advisory, and existing investors – Lumos Capital Group, Akkadian Ventures, Spring Tide Capital, and Firework Ventures, and Album. With this, the total funding raised by Transfr to date accounts to over $90 million.
The investment will be used to further develop Transfr’s VR simulation and training platform and to expand its programs to accommodate its rapidly growing customer base.
Also, Transfr plans to leverage the capital investment to further build out its executive leadership team and scale its platform and impact, enabling more people to explore, learn, and connect with career opportunities in high-growth sectors such as manufacturing, skilled trades, and healthcare.
The funding will also be used to invest in developing new training simulations that cover a wider range of skills and scenarios, as well as to enhance existing ones with more features, including offering training in Spanish.
“About two-thirds of the American workforce do not have a college degree. There is a massive opportunity for both private and public entities to utilise VR training programs to create alternative pathways to employment,” said Bharani Rajakumar, Transfr founder and CEO. “This $40 million investment enables Transfr to continue to invest in undiscovered talent by developing more simulations and solutions to connect the classroom to career pathway with our partners in education and industry and hire the talent we need to scale and achieve our mission.”
New board members of Transfr
ABS Capital Partners Phil Clough will join Transfr’s board of directors, and Jennifer Krusius, also a Partner at ABS Capital, will serve as a board observer.
Clough said, “We believe that Transfr and its experienced management team are uniquely positioned to capitalise on the tailwind from the challenges in the labour market by providing innovative training solutions that can efficiently bring qualified candidates to market.”
Krusius added, “Transfr’s VR platform offers a cost-effective alternative in the educational landscape that can reach many workforce candidates that otherwise would not have had access to this level of training and coaching.”
VR platform for workforce training
Founded by Bharani Rajakumar in 2017 in New York, Transfr provides hands-on and immersive-simulation training for high growth in-demand careers that give real-world experience in the skills needed for job success, development, and retention. Using a headset, trainees are guided through simulations by a digital coach to engage in career exploration, job training, and practice and assessment use cases. Transfr’s innovative platform promotes ever-improving quality and lower development costs of VR simulations.
Transfr’s mission is to scale access to quality education and employment for everyone, regardless of their background or location. The company developed an innovative VR-based platform, which hosts over 300 simulations that focus on careers that do not require a four-year degree.
Transfr has shown to have impressive staying power, with a customer base that now spans government agencies, Fortune 500 companies, community organisations, workforce development groups, K-12 schools and higher-ed institutions. As per the company, Transfr has been installed over 1,000 locations around the U.S. and has facilitated almost 400,000 training simulations.
