Certification platform Certiverse raised an $11 million Series A led by Cherryrock Capital, it announced this week.
The company was founded by Ruben Garcia, Pablo Meyer, and Federico Lopez in 2023. It lets organizations develop certification exams at, its founders say, far less cost than traditional methods.
Certifications are an age-old method to gain technical skills to boost job prospects, as well as gain mastery over a particular subject.
The company says it works with a range of companies, from the technology nonprofit The Linux Foundation to the software company HashiCorp.
CEO Garcia is not new to the certification industry. He previously co-founded (and sold) Innovative Exams, a testing-service company that also provided exam delivery services.
Becoming certified can be “life changing events for leaders and professionals,” he said, but added that it can cost a company as much as $150,000 to develop certification programs and exams.
“Our clients have developed up to 10 in one year on our platform for less than $10,000 per exam,” he continued.
He added that it usually takes about a year to create an exam using legacy providers (such as Pearson, Vue, and Prometric).
“Our business model is aligned with our clients’ interests and we generate the majority of the revenue once their exams are launched and professionals are taking them,” Garcia continued.
He used the word “focused” to describe his fundraising efforts. Certiverse started fundraising in early January, pitching to around 50 firms over the course of 45 days.
“I stayed focused on the outcome,” Garcia said. “Find the right investors, quickly, who believe in the vision and can help us scale from here.”
He met the Cherryrock team through one of his existing investors. Chingona Ventures, Hyde Park Venture Partners, and Zeal Capital Partners also participated in the round. Certiverse has raised a little more than $16 million in total to date, the company told us.
Garcia said the fresh capital will be used to add more automation to the platform, making it easier for anyone to create exams.
“Our goal is to focus on scale and build out the platform to launch 1,000 new clients and partners on Certiverse,” he said.