Organizations of all sizes struggle with determining the best way to provide their employees with technical training. Traditional classroom training can be expensive and time consuming–often requiring employees to spend days or weeks off site. Simply providing employees with books to study can often prove to be ineffective–as there is very little interactivity or opportunities to ask questions.
StormWind was founded in 2009 by Tom Graunke and Corey Frank to provide a better way to deliver IT and custom learning to corporate enterprises, government agencies, and large online universities alike. Classes are held live in HD video during scheduled two-hour blocks of time–as well as being available as “Tivo-like” on-demand replays–making it easy for people to train on their schedule.
The company received funding this year from GSV Capital Corp and Insight founder Tim Crown–to the tune of a $4 million round. They’ve also had more than 500,000 StormWind HD classes viewed since launching the program in beta–serving customers such as Sony, Avnet, PF Changs, and Cisco. The company intends to use the funding to expand their course offerings, further their technology development, and hire up to 150 employees over the next 18 months–providing some great AZ jobs.
Products
StormWind provides classes focused on IT certification and business training topics on Cisco, Microsoft, VMware, Project Management, leadership and more–totaling over 2000 courses in their catalog. These classes are taught by experts in their respective fields and provide a personalized experience that is often lacking from video training–at as little as half the cost of classroom training.
The cost of the courses varies depending on the field of study and the total number of people taking a class. StormWind provides a form on their website to get a quote on the cost of course packages. They also offer custom eLearning, product training, and sales training videos for companies to train their employees–along with custom marketing and advertising solutions to help grow businesses.
The company will be growing and expanding their course catalog and their service offerings with the help of the funding they received. There will certainly be a lot of activity within the company in the coming months–and everyone that’s interested in the AZ tech scene should keep an eye on what’s going on over there–especially if you’re a company looking for options for training employees.
More About StormWind
Founded: 2009
# of Employees: 11-50 (and growing)
Revenues: Not disclosed
Founder: Tom Graunke, Corey Frank
Website: www.stormwind.com
Twitter: @StormWindSocial
Blog: StormWind Blog
Phone: (480) 850-9200
Headquarters: 14646 N. Kierland Blvd., Suite 120, Scottsdale, AZ 85254