Claudio Erba founds Docebo
Claudio Erba is the founder and CEO of the Italian company called Docebo (dō-CHAY-bō), an e-learning company that has developed an open-source LMS. It can be run on the cloud as SaaS on a fee per-user basis or it can be purchased and installed locally. Docebo differentiates itself from competitors by having small and medium business as their main target market rather than education. They offer to produce course materials designed specifically for client businesses. A close look at their client base shows their heavy reliance on client business partnerships. Some universities and several government organizations have also integrated Docebo as their LMS of choice. Docebo has Apple and Android Apps available for the mobile market and highlight the integration of Google Apps for Business in the LMS platform.
Docebo was founded by Erba in 2005 as he was a lecturer in the University of Florence. He has an undergraduate degree in marketing and company communication from Università Cattollica del Sacro Cuore in Milan and a Master’s degree in Multimedia and Internet Engineering from the University of Florence. He has founded and been involved in other tech companies since 1994. In 1999 he was involved in founding Mailforyou.com. As an entrepreneur, his LinkedIn profile indicates “He’s a Startup mentor at InnovActionLab (Italy) and Seedstartup (United Arab Emirates) and Business Plan evaluator at CloudSeed competition.” He is also available for speaking engagements on a variety of tech and business topics.
Currently, Docebo claims 2200 active installations/clients, including 120 corporate clients with about 300,000 users. It is a privately held company with venture capital funding from Seeweb as a Business Angel (30% share) and Principia, a venture investment organization. Encebo generates $1.5 million US revenue annually and has a current trend growth rate of 50% per annum. In 2012, Encebo has raised an additional $3 million US in venture funding to propel itself into a leading LMS provider on an international scale serving 25+ languages.
In reflection on this exercise, the thing that surprised me most was the amount of information available for a company such as Docebo although I could not find much on the leadership team. I found LinkedIn to be an incredible source of information. The apparent success of Encebo after only 7 years in active business is certainly an encouragement that an idea doesn’t necessarily have to be completely unique and original to be successful. Stiff competition from proprietary LMS providers such as Blackboard and Desire2Learn as well as open source solutions such as Moodle has not prevented the success of Docebo.
References
http://http://www.getapp.com/blog/online-learning-systems-review-docebo/
http://claudioerba-eng.blogspot.ca/
http://www.online-educa.com/profile-1428
http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=6104103&authType=OPENLINK&authToken=qviv&trk=hb_upphoto
http://www.trainingpressreleases.com/learning-companies/docebo
http://www.eplanete.com/upload_file/DOCEBO%20BENCHMARKING.pdf
http://www.docebo.com/cms/page/26/Distance_learning_and_scorm_elearning_courses
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/docebo
Deborah S 7:25 am on June 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Great summary! Your comment about the continued growth of the company despite competition is consistent with a report I read from Bersin & Associates. The author of the report, David Mallon, suggested that the number of LMS providers continues to grow fuelled by the entrance of smaller companies.
Deborah
troos 4:01 pm on June 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Yes, there does seem to be many small but successful ventures in the LMS, CMS, SMS and TMS markets. It also seems, however, that for every new idea that makes these ventures successful, another one is bought out and absorbed by the larger corporations such as Blackboard. For example, a company called MoodleRooms, providing online hosting and technical support for the Moodle platform was recently bought by Blackboard so now Blackboard has invested in Moodle. It all seems rather strange to me but I guess if you can buy out the competition, that is one way of maintaining a market status.
Tim
mackenzie 2:29 pm on June 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
It’s interesting to see a product, originally created for education being specialized for businesses. Usually it’s the other way around. It’s also great to see they are succeeding by becoming specialists in business training. I wonder what might happen if other LMS providers get wind to the market potential for business. Although, my experience tells me that these companies are slow to shift (Moodle creators agree) and therefore may never catch up to Docebo, especially if the company continues to evolve to meet the needs of its customers. I wonder what Docebo offers that Blackboard and Desire2Learn don’t?
Cheers, Steve
troos 4:05 pm on June 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Steve
I think Docebos main catch for the business market is their willingness to adapt their technology to suit the needs of their clients. They even offer to provide full course development and learning object creation for their clients. This is very attractive for businesses since they do not need to hire educational experts to do this development.
Tim
gillian 9:40 am on June 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Tim,
I am curious how the company can refer to itself as “open source” if it requires user fee for web-based users or a purchase price for downloaders?
troos 2:12 pm on June 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Gillian
Open source just means that the source code that the software is developed with is made available to the clients. There is no patent or copyright on the particular programming of the software. In this way, if they so desire, the clients can redesign the code to fit their personal preferences. Docebo does offer a free version for up to five users; essentially to try it out. There are also several examples of companies who offer Moodle, also an open-source product on a per-user fee basis (MoodleRooms and Lambda Solutions to name two).
Tim