Firework Ventures

Transfr’s core technology is a dialogue system between the trainee and our virtual coach. This unique VR apprenticeship model lets trainees move at their own pace and provides strategic, specific feedback to help them learn from their mistakes and master the skills they need to successfully perform their job.

Learn In provides a comprehensive upskilling-as-a-service platform, which enables companies to offer employees sabbaticals, during which time they can acquire the new skills that are essential within an evolving workplace. It delivers companies and their employees online, low-cost training programs, as well as traditional degree options particularly focused on digital skills and hard-to-fill roles such as data science and software engineering.

Clasp is an outcomes-oriented company offering flexible funding products such as Income Share Agreements and Deferred Tuition Agreements that supplement student loans. Stride and its founder have been recognized by Forbes, Harvard and MIT for its innovations and social impact. Stride has received venture investments from Graham Holdings, Firework, GSV, Slow Ventures, Sinai Ventures, and Pear VC; and its sponsors include Strada Education, Ascendium, and Silicon Valley Bank. Stride advisors include investors, serial entrepreneurs and industry leaders such as Deborah Quazzo, Brigette Lau, Tina Sharkey, Doug Levin, and Kevin Moss. During 2019-22, the funds under management grew from $10M to $150M. In September 2022, the company announced a partnership with Stanford Law School to empower students to pursue careers of impact and service.

Praxis reimagines corporate bias training, integrating research-backed curriculum with cutting-edge VR technology. Praxis Labs advances diversity and inclusion outcomes through perspective-taking VR-based unconscious bias training. It was established in 2019 and is based in Stanford, California.

Degreed provides companies with a platform that enables employees to develop their skills and create skill profiles. Using that data, the platform can promote career mobility by connecting users to project, gigs, and job opportunities. It integrates and curates all the resources people use to learn including learning management systems and millions of courses, videos, articles, books, and podcasts. The company was launched in 2012 and is headquartered in Pleasanton, California.

We are in a moment in history where entrepreneurs have disproportionate influence on everything from the social problems they work on to what they consume, practice, believe, and desire. As Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter and Square, recently declared on the cover of Forbes, "the most efficient means to spread an idea today is corporate structure." Moreover, according to the Kauffman Foundation, 54% of millennials have started an organization or have the desire to start one. Given all of this, we believe the future of our world depends largely on the ventures the next generation creates. To create an institution for this context, we've created Praxis as a venture group, structured as a non-profit, that focuses on equipping and resourcing a growing portfolio of faith-motivated entrepreneurs who have committed their lives to cultural and social impact, renewing the spirit of their age one organization at a time. Praxis was conceived in 2010 by Dave Blanchard, then a Principal Designer at IDEO and Josh Kwan, the Director of International Giving for the David Weekley Family Foundation, and developed in collaboration with Q, a learning community that mobilizes Christians to advance the common good in society. Each year, Praxis welcomes 12 businesses and 12 nonprofits into their two Accelerator programs, where they provide the top-decision makers in these organizations with the knowledge, network, and personal discipleship necessary to build sustainable, high-impact organizations. In summer of 2014, they'll also launch Praxis Academy, a summer program focused on training Christ-following undergraduates at the intersection of faith, startups, and culture. Academy graduates will have a chance to apply for their Future Founders program, where they'll have an unique opportunity to do a summer apprenticeship with their Accelerator alumni.

Praxis reimagines corporate bias training, integrating research-backed curriculum with cutting-edge VR technology. Praxis Labs advances diversity and inclusion outcomes through perspective-taking VR-based unconscious bias training. It was established in 2019 and is based in Stanford, California.

Transfr’s core technology is a dialogue system between the trainee and our virtual coach. This unique VR apprenticeship model lets trainees move at their own pace and provides strategic, specific feedback to help them learn from their mistakes and master the skills they need to successfully perform their job.

Hone is a live learning platform for management training that cultivates soft skills with hard data. Hone blends the best of expert-led small group training, peer learning, continuous reinforcement, and a technology platform to develop better leaders, managers, and teammates for today’s workplace. The company's platform helps to expand, connect, and let leaders analyze the impact of the training on the organization to provide improvement for team development. Hone was established in 2018 by Tom Griffiths and Savina Perez in Encinitas, California.

Learn In provides a comprehensive upskilling-as-a-service platform, which enables companies to offer employees sabbaticals, during which time they can acquire the new skills that are essential within an evolving workplace. It delivers companies and their employees online, low-cost training programs, as well as traditional degree options particularly focused on digital skills and hard-to-fill roles such as data science and software engineering.