Guild Education

Guild Education, which shortened its name to Guild in April 2023, sells education and upskilling benefits to large employers, who use its platform to offer workers tuition-free degrees, certificates and training as a recruiting and retention tool. Employer partners have included Walmart, Disney, Chipotle, Taco Bell, Lowe's, Target and Hilton. The company was founded in June 2015 by Rachel Romer Carlson and Brittany Stich and is headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Carlson led it as chief executive until Bijal Shah took the role in April 2024.

Forbes reported that in November 2019 Guild closed its fifth financing round, led by General Catalyst, bringing total capital raised to $228 million at a $1 billion valuation; Byron Deeter of Bessemer Venture Partners was an investor, as was Entangled Group, one of the earliest backers. In June 2021 Guild raised a $150 million Series E that valued it at $3.75 billion, more than triple the prior valuation. In June 2022 Wellington Management led a $175 million Series F, with Oprah Winfrey, Citi Impact Fund, Bon Secours Mercy Health and existing backers participating, at a $4.4 billion valuation.

Guild remains private. In 2021 it said three to four million workers had access to its platform, and by mid-2022 that figure had grown to nearly five million, while the number of working adults using it rose 140% over the same year. Carlson told CNBC that Chipotle saw 3.5 times higher retention among workers enrolled in Guild programs. Forbes estimated 2019 revenue above $50 million. Since 2022 the company has contracted: it cut 172 jobs, about 12% of staff, in May 2023, and about a quarter of its workforce, roughly 300 people, in May 2024. Macy's ended its program in January 2025. Guild acquired Nomadic Learning in October 2024 and had about 900 employees in January 2026.

Guild illustrates a business-to-business education model that reached unicorn status four years after founding by selling to employers, not students. General Catalyst led the round that brought it to $1 billion in 2019, and Wellington's 2022 round set the high mark of $4.4 billion just before the funding market turned. The layoffs and leadership change that followed, with no exit as of 2026, leave the investors who entered in 2021 and 2022 waiting on a valuation that must catch up to those prices.