City and Guilds buys into Wellington firm

City and Guilds buys into Wellington firm

City & Guilds, one of the UK’s largest training organisations, has become a major shareholder in Wellington based Totara Learning Solutions.

The acquisition by City and Guilds, the UK based international vocational and work based skills organisation, means that it has acquired a one third shareholding in Totara Learning Solutions Ltd. Totara Learning Solutions have developed a learning management platform for business and Government organisations – Totara LMS. The technology is open source meaning the software’s program code is available and can be customised by the end user to suit their needs. The Wellington based firm has experienced phenomenal growth during the last 12 months. Clients include Tesco, Sony, Vodafone and Safeway and there are now almost two million people using the software worldwide. Totara LMS is also used by 10 New Zealand Government organisations.

Chris Jones, Director General of City & Guilds commented “This is a really exciting development for the City & Guilds Group. As an organisation we are committed to ongoing research and investment in learning including Totara LMS. We are keen to invest and support the development of this exciting open source learning platform.”

The partnership tops off a stellar year for Totara after winning the New Zealand Open Source Awards in November and the Best of Elearning! Award of Excellence in September. 2013 looks to be a big year for this two year old company with Totara having plans to expand its international markets as well as expanding the product’s functionality to include performance management.

Richard Wyles, CEO of Totara Learning Solutions commented “We very much welcome the addition of the City & Guilds group as they have first-hand experience using Totara LMS and all parties can see significant synergies with a wider range of learning and technology services available. City & Guilds’ values are very much aligned to our team’s open source ethos, and our mission to transform the learning technologies marketplace through offering better value and flexibility. We are looking forward to a very exciting 2013 and beyond.”

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