Valamis’ 2019 Highlights and Goals for 2020
Last year we shared our first-ever highlight blog; a window into the passing year and an opportunity to reflect on all the challenges, highlights, and hard work that has contributed to where we are today as a company.
16 years after our humble beginnings in Joensuu, Finland — Valamis continues to push the boundaries of technology and innovation in learning. Without further ado, here are a few of our favourite highlights from 2019 and goals for 2020.
2019 Highlights
Valamis won awards and received recognition from top analysts:
- Fast Growth and Performance Merits Valamis Recognition in the 2019 Fosway 9-Grids™
- Ranked one of the Fastest Growing Companies in Europe
- Recognized by Bersin as a leader in AI-based Content Analysis
- Awarded as a Top 20 Training Delivery Company by Training Industry
- Shortlisted for the 2019 Learning Technologies Awards’ Best use of blended learning solution with Copernicus
- How LXP is being adopted by the learning market
- Six predictions for learning and development in 2019
- How to make virtual learning a social experience
- Awarded as a Top 20 Learning Portal/LMS Company by Training Industry
- Shortlisted as a finalist for the Learning Platform of the Year at the 2020 LEARNING AWARDS
Acquired companies, new offices, new clients and new employees:
- Valamis Expands to the Netherlands through Acquisition of Componence
- Amadeus scales personalized learning for 1 million users
- EXAM uses Electronic exams to save teachers’ time — and nature
- Valamis hired the 200th employee, Tino Virtanen
- Valamis expands office in Boston and Lappeenranta
Released new features & new partnerships:
- Valamis Revolutionizes Corporate Learning with Intelligent Knowledge Discovery
- Valamis Joins LinkedIn Learning’s Integration Partner Program
- Valamis Announces a Strategic Content Partnership with OpenSesame
- Valamis Announces Partnership with Dell Boomi
- Leveraged more partnerships from the world's leading content providers, such as edX, Skillsoft, Go1, BizLibrary, and Udemy for Business, and other integrations including Google Drive, OneDrive, Microsoft Office 365, and Dropbox, anti-plagiarism system Urkund and accessibility tools like ReadSpeaker
- The new design of Valamis LXP
2019 Valamis Statistics
101 Custom Slack Emojis created, including:
Valbo, an Arctic fox, our chatbot avatar and company mascot
Salamis, referring to our April Fool’s name change prank
A Black hole, to commemorate the first photo ever taken of a black hole in April
Finnish Matti, referring to the “Finnish Nightmares” cartoon character
Party parrots in many forms
Nationalities + spoken languages
15 nationalities + 18 spoken languages in the company
Valamisians come from:
| 🇫🇮Finland | 🇷🇺Russia | 🇳🇱Netherlands |
| 🇬🇧United Kingdom | 🇺🇸United States | 🇩🇪Germany |
| 🇸🇪Sweden | 🇷🇸Serbia | 🇭🇺Hungary |
| 🇮🇳India | 🇳🇵Nepal | 🇮🇷Iran |
| 🇹🇭Thailand | 🇨🇴Colombia | 🇭🇰Hong Kong/China |
Sauna time
11,024 hours spent in the sauna
Instagram takeovers
11 #ValamisTakeovers
3 New offices
Valbo Travels
Our company mascot has been to 9 countries
2019 brought many celebrations
This year the Valamis DevDay & Summer Party returned bigger than ever, bringing almost 200 Valamisians to exceptionally warm and sunny Joensuu. The first ever Valamis Games were held and winners (literally) crowned.
In January, we tried cooking Korean food together. It sure is tasty, and also surprisingly fun to cook - at least in this company.
Exercising is important for your physical and mental health - we get that. Valamisians took part in city runs, marathons, fatbiking events, ninja courses and many other sports events to stay sharp.
In 2019, Valamisians traveled to Riga to experience the beautiful old town, medieval castles, and Latvian cuisine.
Having some afterwork drinks, playing games, going to escape room, and enjoy stand-up. Who says no?
One of the new events in 2019 was Wine and Painting, which have proved surprisingly popular. The name says it all: you enjoy some good wine with friends while painting (or trying to paint) a picture. It’s fun, trust us.
Valamis organized Xmas parties and lunches in all offices. In the picture, Santa has come to the Joensuu HQ to share the gifts.
The Valamis Vision for 2020
“When I joined the company almost 10 years ago, we had 20 employees. In June 2019, we hired our 200th employee. Growth and internationalization have been the most common factors in my function during the ongoing year. From my point of view, the best highlight of the year 2019 was our first international merger. Instead of growth, our HR goal for 2020 is to make the organization excel in its line of business by finding the best roles for every employee, caring for all employees and achieving operational efficiency.”
- Maria Vihtkari, Chief Human Resources Officer
“I have been responsible for Valamis product management, design, and development since January 2019. Over the past year at Valamis, I have enjoyed getting to meet other Valamisians all around the world, and work with some of the biggest companies in the world to discuss their future needs regarding employee skill development. I am passionate about improving Valamis' customer-focused service design and we will continue to re-organize our organization and processes to support our customers. Our vision for 2020 is to focus on developing Valamis to support the productivity and measurement of learning.”
- Pauliina Kulla, Chief Product Officer
A Message from our CEO
“In 2019 we received many positive outcomes as a result of our data-oriented strategy. The new architecture in the major product release of Valamis 4 received interest from all around the globe. In 2020, we will continue to grow by establishing our first office in Asia.”
- Jussi Hurskainen, CEO, Valamis