Fitch Learning buys majority stake in Founderz

Fitch Learning and HearstLab have acquired a majority stake in Founderz, the Barcelona-based AI business school co-founded by Anna Cejudo and Pau Garcia-Milà. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Founderz sells certified AI training programmes to professionals and corporate teams, competing directly with LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, and Skillsoft in the corporate upskilling market. Where those platforms rely on static, slide-based content, Founderz combines real-time collaboration, personalised AI-powered support, and cinematic-format lectures produced with leading AI experts. Microsoft selected Founderz to deliver AI training across ten European countries, making it the only Iberian-origin operator holding a formal Microsoft Worldwide Training Services partnership at continental scale, a distribution agreement that generic platforms cannot replicate.

The platform has more than 630,000 learners worldwide and holds one of the few globally recognised Microsoft Worldwide Training Partner designations, granting learners dual certification that carries direct professional weight.

"Becoming the major shareholder in Founderz is a significant milestone for Fitch Learning and CSI, and it demonstrates our ongoing commitment to supporting the financial services industry." — Andreas Karaiskos, CEO, Fitch Learning.

Fitch Learning is the financial education arm of Fitch Group, itself owned by Hearst Corp. HearstLab, Hearst's venture fund focused on women-led startups, co-led the investment alongside Fitch Learning. The deal follows Fitch Learning's earlier acquisition of Moody's Analytics Learning Solutions, a move that repositioned the group as a scaled global financial education platform before this Founderz transaction.

The commercial logic is partly regulatory. The Canadian Securities Course, owned by Fitch Learning's Canadian Securities Institute, lost its status as the mandatory securities licensing course in Canada after the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization launched an exam-based proficiency regime in 2025. Stripped of regulatory obligation, the course must now compete on quality. Founderz brings AI-adaptive personalisation that Fitch Learning could not build at this pace internally.

Karaiskos said the partnership would "accelerate the integration of advanced AI technology into a range of our learning solutions, including the new Canadian Securities Course, which will be personalised, adaptive and designed to deliver a more engaging learning experience that enhances role readiness." He had projected a year-end launch for the redesigned course in an interview earlier this year.

Founderz was founded in 2020 and by 2023 was close to running out of funding before the Microsoft partnership provided both capital and distribution. The two founders, Cejudo and Garcia-Milà, previously built Ideafoster, a Barcelona innovation consultancy they sold to Advent International-backed Canvia in 2018, establishing an earlier track record of building and exiting Iberian tech ventures to international buyers.

The deal gives Fitch Learning a European-credentialled AI training asset operating inside the EU regulatory perimeter, deployable across its Canadian institutional client base and international financial services markets. For Founderz, majority ownership by a Hearst-backed global education group replaces contract-by-contract corporate sales in Spain and Europe with direct access to Fitch Learning's established institutional relationships.

Fitch Learning operates Canadian offices in Toronto and Montreal. Fitch Group currently lists dozens of analyst and analytics-related roles in Toronto on its website, signalling ongoing investment in its North American build-out.

What the deal actually unlocks is a certified, Microsoft-partnered AI curriculum inside a financial education platform that now has both the regulatory credibility and the institutional distribution to reach professional learners across Canada and beyond.