Data Dive
Uneven gender parity progress (McKinsey & Company): Today women comprise 29% of the C-suite, way up from 17% in 2015. Yet improvement in representation has been notably slower at the entry and manager levels.
This week’s featured startup
Intern Guys (Hannan Hussain, CEO & Founder): Nora is an AI-powered mock interviewer designed to simulate real-world job and internship interviews. Nora directly addresses the Future of Work, where AI-driven tools are reshaping how individuals prepare for and succeed in a rapidly evolving job market.
Investment
Cyber Guru Snaps $25M to Expand AI-Powered Cybersecurity Training Platform (Tech Funding News): With over 700 customers, Cyber Guru delivers a comprehensive and modern security awareness training platform to security leaders of organisations of any size and vertical.
SchooLinks Announces $80M Series B Funding Round Led by Susquehanna Growth Equity (SGE) (Business Wire): SchoolLinks democratizes access to College & Career Readiness (CCR) resources and opportunities for students, as school districts innovate how they students to prepare for the future.
Workforce management platform Craftt closes $2M seed round led by Superscrypt (Citybiz): Founder Peggy Choi’s vision for a “frictionless and fairer future of work,” brings universal benefits to freelancers, consultants, contractors, digital nomads, remote workers, and creators.
Ednition Closes $3.5M Seed Round (Ednition): Responding to the pain felt by edtech innovators in building/maintaining infrastructure for school/district integrations, their platform (RosterStream) delivers integration with any SIS or third-party data provider to simplify building and scaling of edtech applications.
Bucharest-based Youni secures €900K to boost AI ecosystem connecting universities with students (EU-Startups): Users create a profile with interests, goals, academic results and achievements. AI powered algorithms then recommend suitable fields of study, and the universities that provide them.
Interplay Learning Closes Growth Investment from Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Acquires Industrial Training International (FinSMEs): The platform delivers immersive career development for skilled trades, enabling rapid upskilling and empowering new technicians to be job-ready within weeks.
Agentech Raises $3M in Seed Funding (FinSMEs): The AI-driven platform offers a digital support workforce for insurance claims adjusters. By automating mundane workflows, it enables accurate claims processing, allowing desk adjusters to focus on high-value decision-making and customer service.
Oboe Raises $4M in Seed Funding (FinSMEs): While technology progresses rapidly, giving machines greater capabilities, human intellect is declining: IQ scores are falling, standardized test scores are at record lows, and attention spans are shrinking. Oboe aims to reverse the trend by reigniting human curiosity and learning.
Ziplines Education Acquires Clicked to Integrate Enhanced Work Simulations (Higher Ed Dive): Clicked’s work simulations will integrate into Ziplines’ programs and scale to university partners, to enhance professional learning and better serve adult learners for the evolving workforce.
Resources
CG 2024 Employability Survey Report (Cengage): Bucking trends from WSJ and other recent surveys, 73% of grads said their education was worth the cost. But 70% wish their early education had exposed them to alternative learning pathways.
Adapting to an AI-driven world of work (Adecco): Among the more controversial findings: More employees want to see internal mobility, but less than 1 in 10 are choosing to stay specifically to be upskilled.
Opportunities
The SHRM Labs Workplace Tech Accelerator: A Catalyst for Innovation (Society for Human Resource Management): The program supports growth-stage startups developing innovative solutions for the future of work, including $200,000K in equity investment via SAFE. Applications open now through November 11.
In the news
Creator Economy: VCs and the Rise of Venture Investment in Influencer Startups (The Recursive): The creator economy’s infrastructure is moderning in content creation/management, audience engagement, marketing, PR, and above all — payment and revenue management systems.
Remote work could help reduce emissions, but experts say it’s not a silver bullet (CBC News): Researchers found that remote work could decrease transportation emissions by 60%+ on average, while increasing their household emissions by less than 10%.
State Aid Kept Tuition From Outpacing Inflation (Inside Higher Ed): The College Board’s 2024 “Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid” report finds tuition rising for private institutions, but flat-to-declining for public ones.
This AI system makes human tutors better at teaching children math (MIT Technology Review): In a study of almost 2,000 students age 5-13 from underserved communities, 66% of students whose tutors used Tutor CoPilot passed their tests, compared to 62% in the control group.
Iceland’s four-day work week success story (The Daily Star): More than half of Iceland’s workforce has begun working reduced hours. The most impressive success metric: in 2023, Iceland’s economy expanded by an impressive 5%, outpacing most European countries.
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