Dear all,
Welcome to this Special Update, brought to you today as we proudly have just published our Brighteye European Learning & Work Funding Report 2026!
Please find a collection of key findings below, and head to our Brighteye Sidekick resource hub for a summary of the takeaways and to download the full report!
We hope you’ll enjoy!
Best,
Team Brighteye
Some key findings
Highlights include that VC funding secured by European Learning & Work companies more than doubled from 2024 to 2025 and the number of deals jumped 21%. Global funding also increased but less significantly than in Europe.
Geographically, activity is concentrated in five core markets - the UK, Germany, France, Spain, and the Netherlands - yet the ecosystem is city-led, with London, Paris, Berlin, and Madrid acting as primary hubs and a second tier of European cities – Milan, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Dublin - emerging with distinct specialisations.
Capital remains concentrated, with a small number of large rounds driving headline totals, with ~55% of capital concentrated in the top 10 deals, even as deal volume stays resilient. The top deals were raised by German Amboss with €240M, Spanish Lingokids with €103M, and German Sdui with €95M (a Brighyeye portfolio company!).
On the Exits, they tended to be driven by strategic buyers rather than PE, with the biggest deal being Swedish Sana acquired by US HR Platform Workday for ~$1.1BN. Companies seeking exits should position themselves as strategically unavoidable, rather than purely financially optimised.
The Value Chain for Learning & Work
While conventional Edtech funding levels remain below the peaks we observed in 2021, we see that innovation and capital are increasingly converging around a broader learning & work stack, extending beyond education delivery into skills activation, productivity, hiring, and mobility.
Hence, this 7th edition of the report has become the ‘Learning & Work’ funding report.
To this end, within this year’s report and in addition to the headline funding and activity data, we consider two different ways to understand the Learning & Work space:
The first looks at data between Conventional Edtech (K12, HE, lifelong learning), Corporate and workplace learning, and Productivity and talent platforms.
The second considers a forward-facing ‘value chain for learning & work’ which we believe represents a framework that applies to all sectors - working through ‘learn’ (foundational knowledge), ‘place’ (contextualising skills within work), ‘perform’ (on-the-job effectiveness, productivity) and progress (career mapping, upskilling and skill portability). This is more focused on the ‘purpose’ of specific solutions rather than their user base.
The data points to a clear reframing: learning is increasingly funded not as an end in itself, but as a driver of work outcomes and progression over time. It explores how the shift from education delivery to labour market outcomes is reshaping the European ecosystem and what it means for founders, investors, and ecosystem players looking ahead.
You will find much more in the summary blog post and full report on our Brighteye Sidekick website.
➡️ Summary Blog and Full Report Here ⬅️
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