2024-25
Lumos Impact Report

In 2024-2025, we continued our commitment to backing innovative companies that deliver high-quality, accessible education and training aimed at creating meaningful impact for global learners.

Download the Impact Report Here

We partner with entrepreneurs across the human capital development sector to expand access, strengthen capacity, and improve outcomes through innovation. Together with our portfolio companies, we focus on growing both business performance and the impact delivered to the learners, educators, and employers they serve.

Read more about our approach in this year’s Annual Impact Report.

Lumos Theory of Change

Our Impact Vision

Unlocking human potential by partnering with companies that transform how people learn and work.

The Challenge

Persistent barriers in education and employment — including cost, geography, and outdated delivery models — limit upward mobility for millions.

Cross-Cutting Priorities

Across all investments, we prioritize:
1. Access
2. Equity
3. Quality outcomes

How We Measure & Manage (IMM)

We measure impact through company-level outcomes and portfolio benchmarks. We are also working with management teams to embed impact into governance and performance targets.

Our Investment Process

We utilize various frameworks and tools that embed impact into every step of our investment process:

Sourcing

We take a dynamic approach to sourcing, including thematic market assessments and a systematic approach to building our network. We seek out mission-oriented founders from diverse backgrounds. We focus on proprietary opportunities aligned with broader impact theses and market trends.

Diligence

Our diligence process is designed to deepen our understanding of the prospective company’s thesis to improve outcomes for students and educators, which we assess alongside the company’s business model. We put a premium on services that benefit marginalized and disadvantaged communities, and look to uncover opportunities to more deeply embed accessibility and outcomes into the product or service. We seek out rigorously produced, ideally research-backed and data-centric analyses to inform our investment decisions.

Investment

We formalize accountability with portfolio companies through explicit conversations with CEOs and impact side letters or other legal documentation. We always ideate and co-create the appropriate accountability with CEOs as Lumos may be the first investor to ask for this accountability around impact.

Portfolio Support

Lumos has developed a playbook to help portfolio companies integrate impact priorities as they scale. This support is intentionally cross-functional, reflecting our belief that impact should be embedded across all areas of a business. For example, we assist with talent by connecting companies to recruiting channels that reach candidates from underrepresented backgrounds. For capital formation, we introduce companies to impact-oriented debt and equity investors. From a governance perspective, we have helped to establish impact advisory committees and incorporate impact metrics into management KPIs.

Exit

In partnership with our founders, Lumos builds relationships with impact-aligned strategic and financial partners, and serves as a point of accountability at the board level in considering potential exit opportunities that serve our stakeholders.

Across the Portfolio

High Level View

~ 49M

Learners Globally

Our portfolio supports over 49 million learners worldwide through B2B, B2C, B2G, and B2B2C business models. These models enhance access and improve outcomes, particularly for low-income, minority, and disadvantaged populations, utilizing freemium models, third-party payer arrangements, and partnerships, among other strategies.

53,000+

Career Outcomes

A career outcome is achieved when an active user of a portfolio company credits the company with having helped them positively in their career trajectory. This could include any of the following: securing a new job, internship, apprenticeship, landing a new job as a result of internal mobility, starting a new business, mastering a necessary skill, graduating from a skills training program, or getting a new job title and/or a salary increase.

70

Countries

23

Lanuages

Through free and paid products and services, our companies bridge gaps for learners in 70 countries, through multiple languages, including English, French, Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, Portuguese, Dutch, and German.