A year ago, Kathleen Utecht and I met with Felix Ortiz, founder of Viridis Learning following an introduction made by a Comcast employee. From that moment, we knew there was something brewing with this entrepreneur and startup that could be special. While we conducting further research on the company and the team, we discovered what that something special really was. Viridis is a startup with a big vision for solving a real world problem, closing the skills gap by providing workforce training and certification for employment seekers and career switchers. At scale, the company will be a major driver in a global movement towards transitioning lower skill workers into the middle skill workforce.
Viridis Learning piqued our interest because it offers solutions to real world problems. These solutions are the offspring of innovation, creativity, and ambition applied with intent and passion to make the lives of others better. The beauty of Viridis is that they are building a platform that allows the student to learn at their own pace, on their own schedule, and on a device that is most familiar to them. For a target population that overwhelmingly prefers mobile, this will be a tremendous advantage.
Viridis launched its product on September 24th at NBC Studios with the former presidents of Costa Rica and Mexico, former US governors, and several CEOs and senior managers of Fortune 500 companies all in attendance. Most notably, the conversation of the evening was not about Viridis but rather the emphasis was on what can be done to address the global issues of workforce readiness and opportunity. These are huge real world problems and I’m happy to know the Catalyst Fund has invested in a company that will help solve them.