Skillsoft CEO: 'When it comes to learning, addiction is a good thing'

Edtech company Skillsoft, which went public yesterday via SPAC with Churchill Capital II, is looking to take over the corporate digital learning market with its educational training videos.

“We cover all the major categories of corporate digital learning. That includes leadership and business development and business skills compliance and technology training,” Skillsoft CEO Jeffery Tarr told Yahoo Finance Live.

“The learners want to learn. They want to advance their careers. So it’s both push from the employer, pull from the learners, and it really is a growth opportunity.”

With the American workforce working from home for well over a year, Tarr says that Skillsoft’s offerings are designed to work with the way people learn today.

“These are not 45 minute lectures that are just filmed in classrooms and dropped online. These are 2, 3, 4 minute bites of learning that are linked together in what we call aspiring learning journeys, interspersed with assessments and with badges,” he added.

“So it’s a highly interactive experience that is designed for the way people learn and it’s actually quite addictive. And when it comes to learning, addiction is a good thing. “

When it comes to Skillsoft’s future Tarr says that the shift to digital learning has been a boon for the company’s growth.

“We’re actually seeing tremendous adoption,” he said. “Most of our revenue now is on a growth business ... that’s because there’s a huge shift from classroom-first to digital-first in corporate digital learning.”

Looking ahead to possible tuck-in acquisitions, Tarr says that Skillsoft’s platform is designed to integrate third-party content and distribute it to its customer base.

“There are new verticals and new geographies that are adapting corporate digital learning. And we have a platform that is designed to integrate third-party content and distribute it to our customer base, which includes 70% of the fortune 1000,” he said.

“So that allows us to acquire these smaller companies that don’t have distribution, put them on our platform, drive growth in a highly accretive fashion and deliver value to our customers who really need a company like Skillsoft to help make sense of the chaos out there and extend our one-stop-shop into new areas.”

Reggie Wade is a writer for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @ReggieWade.

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