Hone, the reimagined training platform for modern teams, today announced a $2.75 million seed extension round, bringing total funding to-date to $6.4 million. With this fresh round of funding, Hone has brought on Firework Ventures and NextGen Venture Partners as new investors. Existing investors Cowboy Ventures, Harrison Metal, Slack Fund and Reach Capital have also participated.

Hone will use the funds to expand its platform and develop programs to meet the rising demand from companies that are increasingly distributed.

Co-founded by Tom Griffiths, the former co-founder of FanDuel, and Savina Perez, previously at CultureIQ, Hone combines research-backed, live online classes led by expert executive coaches with a unique technology platform to reinforce and measure training's impact at scale. The hybrid humans-plus-technology approach delivers the most effective remote leadership, management and people skills training in the market. Customers include GoFundMe, Rosetta Stone, Casper, World Remit and Dashlane.

An Innovator in Remote Learning & Development As Businesses Transition to Live Video Training for Distributed Teams

"We are seeing significant demand for our radically new and improved way for businesses to experience learning, development and leadership training, and we're thrilled to get a boost from returning and new investors at this crucial time," said Tom Griffiths, CEO and co-founder of Hone. "Organizations may have been forced to go remote, but the challenge of creating effective leaders, managers and employees endures, and in fact has never been more important."

Hone is a cost-efficient, complete workplace training platform that cultivates effective leadership, management and people skills. Live workshops, measurable impact, and frictionless rollouts make Hone the ideal platform to scale remote training. Hone targets more than half of U.S. workers now in remote environments to continue to train, grow and adapt, regardless of location.

"Our clients and investors understand Hone's power to transform the workplace for the better," said Co-Founder Savina Perez. "Our vision is to democratize access to training, optimizing for the needs of today's workforce, and we have the right combination of technology and team to make that vision a reality."

Investor Thoughts on the Funding Round

"Many of us have painful recollections of unengaging, old-school, classroom-based training classes. Hone has built a modern, highly engaging, digitally-integrated solution that works beautifully for today's distributed team members," said Aileen Lee, Managing Partner at Cowboy Ventures. "We are proud to continue to back Hone to help team members learn and thrive in the rapidly changing work environment."

"We are excited to partner with Hone as the world's leading businesses transition to synchronous video experiences during this period of COVID-19 and beyond," said Jon Bassett, Managing Partner at NextGen Venture Partners. "Hone is the clear leader for manager learning and development. We've heard from new and existing customers who are increasing utilization of Hone's platform because they see huge gains over traditional methods like on-site and video training."

About Hone

Hone is the reimagined training platform for modern teams. Launched in 2018 and headquartered in San Francisco and New York City, Hone's mission is to democratize access to the world's best training. As the first-ever platform for live online instructor-led training classes, Hone allows organizations of all sizes to easily source, manage and deliver best-in-class leadership, management and people skills training, and measure its impact on their organization. For more information, visit www.honehq.com, and follow Hone on Twitter @honehq, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

About Cowboy Ventures

Cowboy Ventures is a seed-stage venture fund that was founded by Aileen Lee in 2012. The firm seeks to back exceptional founders who are building products that re-imagine work and personal life in large and growing markets. Cowboy Ventures has invested in companies such as Accompany, Dollar Shave Club, Guild Education, Lightstep and Textio. The fund is based in Palo Alto, California. Visit cowboy.vc for more info.