Gemba Raises $18M for Executive Training in the Metaverse

Gemba, a workplace virtual reality (VR) startup, has netted $18 million in a Series A funding round.

According to a Wednesday (Jan. 25) press release from the company, Parkway Venture Capital provided the investment, which values the company at $60 million.

“The investment will accelerate our growth in EMEA and help fund our expansion into North America,” CEO Nathan Robinson said. “Customers can expect an even wider choice of training simulations, tools, events and learning experiences.”

As an educational technology company, Gemba evolved out of an executive training business known as The Leadership Network. But while The Leadership Network utilized more traditional technologies in its approach to workplace training, Gemba is designing training tools for the remote working environment using virtual reality (VR).

Rather than businesses sending their executives to corporate training events, often running up a hefty bill in the process, with Gemba, they can run educational exercises remotely in virtual environments.

Robinson said that Gemba’s VR learning platform has been deployed by some of the largest corporations in the world, including Philips, Pfizer, Nike, Coca-Cola, Caterpillar, Johnson & Johnson, Dell and Amazon, which use the company’s system to train their leaders and senior workforces around the world.

Gemba said it will continue to develop its offerings while it hopes to introduce colocation services, adaptable mixed reality, AI-powered consultants, and a customizable version of the software for enterprise use at scale.

While the success of companies like Gemba suggests that there is at least some demand for VR technology, as PYMNTS has reported, sales of VR and augmented reality (AR) headsets declined by 12% in 2022.

As PYMNTS writes, “the ennui is palpable,” and part of the challenge is that so much metaverse innovation looks like a solution in search of a problem.

“Among the reasons that the metaverse has not taken off: There’s no clear-cut use case, or set of use cases, that are not served by other apps, games or experiences,” PYMNTS reported.

Nevertheless, firms like Meta are continuing to invest in the metaverse, which said last month that it would dedicate 20% of its funding to the VR arm of its firm.

For all PYMNTS EMEA coverage, subscribe to the daily EMEA Newsletter.