In November 2020, we announced the creation of the M12 Advisory Board, a group of industry-leading experts who are helping our team understand the technology trends on the horizon—shaping our investment theses in their respective focus areas and mentoring the founders in our portfolio. Today, I’m proud to share that Dr. Charlie Miller, Vice President of Social Learning at Microsoft and founder of Flipgrid, has joined the M12 Advisory Board to lend his expertise on enterprise and consumer learning.

In 2015, Dr. Miller founded Flipgrid—a shortform video discussion platform for PreK to PhD educators, learners, and families. Flipgrid was acquired by Microsoft in 2018 and is now used by more than 100 million learners across 190 countries. Dr. Miller is a deep expert in both education and design, as well as building and engaging with creator communities; he was a tenured Associate Professor in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota, as well as the founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Design Innovation. Charlie has published more than 100 articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings focused on the intersection of social learning, community, and design.

At M12, we’re investing in early-stage companies disrupting the enterprise. From the growing market size of the global workplace training industry (and its digital acceleration during remote work mandates) to the broad consumerization of business applications, Dr. Miller’s expertise in social learning and design is a critical addition to our advisory bench. In advance of this announcement, he has been working with M12 portfolio company Go1—the world’s largest digital learning library—to great acclaim:

“It has been great to connect with Charlie and learn from his firsthand experience scaling a modern learning technology startup,” said Go1 CEO and co-founder Andrew Barnes. “I’ve appreciated having a leader in this field take the time to talk through everything from strategy to product roadmap and beyond. We have a shared belief in the tremendous opportunities that come from technology and education, and it’s always exciting to explore ways to push boundaries with learning design, and how to make training and education more accessible.”

We’re thankful for the time that Dr. Miller has already invested in mentoring the next generation of visionary founders and look forward to future collaboration. At M12, our team collectively has decades of experience in product development, R&D, and go-to-market; but the M12 Advisory Board has been a phenomenal way for us to expand our understanding of the evolving technology landscape and leverage the Microsoft platform to provide more value to our portfolio companies. As the pace of innovation accelerates and our team considers new investment frontiers, we’re thankful to have world-class advisors like Dr. Charlie Miller to consult, guide, and support.

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