Lepaya, a provider of soft skill training that combines both online and offline learning, has announced the acquisition of Krauthammer, a senior leadership and commercial excellence training provider, to advance its mission to connect people’s potential to business impact.
With Krauthammer’s acquisition, Lepaya establishes itself as the premier upskilling and transformation company catering to the needs of large-scale corporate entities, offering top-notch leadership training to their senior management, thus facilitating the profound transformation of global businesses.
The combined company has over 400 employees across offices in Amsterdam, London, Berlin, Munich, Stockholm, Paris, Zurich, Brussels, and Shanghai. It serves 1000+ global clients, including ING, Dell, Maersk, Backbase and Freudenberg. Lepaya becomes the go-to upskilling and transformation company for enterprises and their top-level leaders by joining forces.
Co-founded by René Janssen and Peter Kuperus in 2018, Lepaya aims to empower professionals worldwide to be more effective in their work and to lead happier lives so that they can ignite businesses. The platform allows companies across all industries to tailor training as per employees’ and executives’ needs. The startup has been established with the belief that proper training at the right time is key to making organizations more productive. A mix of online and offline learning programmes ensures that people learn skills effectively to boost their careers or even retrain by developing new skills.
Speaking about the acquisition, Co-founder & Co-CEO of Lepaya, René Janssen, said:
The acquisition of Krauthammer is a major step forward for Lepaya – making Lepaya the leading capability platform that boosts productivity and retention of workforces of the world’s largest organizations. In just our 5th year of existence, we will touch the lives of more than 250.000 employees while aiming to help the entire global workforce of 3.3 billion eventually.
Krauthammer has evolved from a sales training-focused company to a network organization with global reach. It serves clients with a broad portfolio of human capital development solutions. The company trains more than 20,000 participants worldwide in more than a dozen languages yearly.
Chief Executive Officer of Krauthammer, Frans van Kreuningen, added:
I’m really excited for Krauthammer and Lepaya to join forces. By combining Krauthammer’s long-standing training quality with delivery at scale across Lepaya’s platform, plus AI and VR-powered learning technology, we will be able to upskill and transform companies at every level of the organization.
Since its inception, Lepaya has complemented organic growth with successful acquisitions. From acquiring AI technology companies like Munich-based VCoach, and Amsterdam-based Smartenup to the recent acquisition of London-based SpeakFirst, the startup has successfully integrated product portfolios and helped existing, world-class portfolios and solutions to accelerate their societal impact by scaling faster and reaching more companies and learners.
Adding further about the merger, Co-founder & Co-CEO of Lepaya, Peter Kuperus, said:
We are unique in that our technology can prove that employees, after having gone through our programs, truly apply the skills we teach on the job. No other European player can do this at scale.
In 2021, Lepaya had raised a $ 40 million Series B round led by Target Global, with participation from Noor van Boven (formerly N26), Anna Brandt (formerly Mollie), entrepreneurs Jordy Kool (Urban Gym) and Chris Zadeh (formerly Ohpen). Existing investors Mediahuis Ventures and Tablomonto also participated in this round.
