An Italian soft skills educations platform, has raised £1.3m for international expansion, beginning with the UK.
The funding will be used to scale the platform and begin its international growth.
Life Based Value (LBV), led by founder and CEO Riccarda Zezza, offers digital soft skills-based training programmes, such as ‘Maternity As A Masters’ (MAAM), that harness soft skills gained through life transitions such as parenthood into business capabilities.
Zezza founded Life Based Value after 15 years of management positions in the corporate world, where she was demoted upon her return to work after having her second child. She created MAAM as a solution to this common problem for working parents.
Based on scientific research, the Italian start-up’s platform is already used by over 50 firms in Italy including Accenture, Danone, Boston Consulting Group, Amgen and UniCredit.
The firm has hired ex-Primo Toys co-founder Valeria Leonardi as its international lead to drive growth in the UK and internationally, and has made its ‘MAAM’ qualification available in English for rollout to UK businesses.
The company team also include Milena Prisco, Legal Counsel, Fausta Pavesio, who is amongst the 50 most influential business angels in Europe, Elena Casolar from Opes-LCEF Foundation, Melody Lang, founder of MPA Education, with the VC round being lead by Impact Ventures from Hungary.
“As I travelled the world I have touched first-hand how the innovation of our solution is sought after from Germany to Japan to South East Asia,” said Zezza.
“This is the reason why our next growth phase, besides consolidating our position in Italy, will be outward-looking.”
In response to transformation of their market, Italian telecommunications company Linkem has been utilising MAAM to develop positive attitudes and skills in their employees, including self-awareness, empathy and listening, ‘mental elasticity’ and complex problem solving.