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Check out Elise’s story, and the story of other Project Diane founders at digitalundivided.com/projectdiane
Elise Smith is co-founder and CEO of Praxis Labs, a DEI learning platform designed to redefine work cultures through research-backed virtual reality experiences. The building of Praxis began on the palm tree, Palo Alto campus of Stanford University in 2018, when Elise and her cofounder Heather Shen were both completing Master’s programs. The startup grew quickly, participating in the 2020 Morgan Stanley Multicultural Innovation Lab before announcing $15.5 million in Series A funding in 2021. So far, Praxis Labs has raised more than $18.7 million in venture capital and was named to digitalundivided and Cosmopolitan’s The New C-Suite in 2022.
Praxis Labs is an end-to-end immersive learning platform focused on driving equity, inclusion, and value for its clients. The platform provides immersive DEI learning journeys in virtual and mixed reality paired with practice and insights. This results in incremental, individual behavioral change that shifts overall organizational and systemic change.
Smith and Shen were brought to this work as women of color with shared lived experiences. They had experienced and witnessed a lack of equity, inclusion, and dignity in the workplace and saw that the workforce was becoming increasingly global and diverse. Yet, the investment, innovation, and attention to DEI solutions to work across and bridge differences were lacking in key ways. They saw a need for scalable solutions, for more engaging self-directed learning, and for learning that was effective and drove real outcomes. This is what inspired Praxis Labs in the fall of 2018 — two lifetimes of experiences, the stories of their families, and the belief that there was a better way to work.
Smith shared insights on her team’s approach to raising venture capital, experience with corporate equity pledge programs, and how she defines success.
DIGITALUNDIVIDED: Are there any ways in which your identity has shaped your entrepreneurial or fundraising journey?
ELISE SMITH: It’s hard to disentangle my experience as a founder from my experience as a Black woman — and all the other intersectional identities I hold. So my identity has shaped every way I show up as a founder, how I’m perceived, and how I lead. What’s been really important are the other Black founders, especially Black female founders in my circles, with whom I can confide — from the highs to the lows. It’s been important to have this community.
DIGITALUNDIVIDED: What was your approach to raising venture capital for your company?
ELISE SMITH: Before raising venture capital, Heather and I were incredibly scrappy in our focus on proving the demand, value, and impact of our product. In so many ways, Stanford helped us de-risk the startup process. While in graduate school, we spoke to over 150 chief diversity officers, learning and development practitioners, immersive learning specialists, and other leaders and practitioners in this space. We self-funded through student grants and pitch competitions. By the time we focused on raising venture capital, this work not only helped us prove our pitch, but we already had clients buying our first immersive learning module. The impact we were driving spoke for the demand and the opportunity in front of us.
We seek funding from people who are aligned with our vision for a more equitable society and see the power of leveraging learning, and in particular immersive knowledge and insights and practice, to get there. That’s the lens through which we look at everyone with whom we work, including our investors.
DIGITALUNDIVIDED: What have your experiences as a WOC founder been like pre- and post-2020?
ELISE SMITH: With current market uncertainty, the funding process can be even harder, especially for founders with intersectional and underrepresented identities. I’m grateful that Praxis Labs is in the space we’re in — HR Tech and L&D. What we’re hearing from our clients is that even in a downturn when there are a lot of layoffs and uneasiness about the market, companies, and leaders are still investing in their people. Because they know what we know — that upskilling their teams to meet this moment is essential to a sustainable and resilient company.
DIGITALUNDIVIDED: What is your ultimate aspiration for your business/definition of success?
ELISE SMITH: So much of what is written about me and what we’re doing is tied to my identity as a Black female founder. It is not necessarily tied to the impact data that we’re seeing with our clients, or the business value we’re driving. When we can get to a place where the product, thought leadership, and insights are the conversation, that’s going to be quite powerful for all of us. For Praxis Labs, success is systemic, organizational change activated through policies and practices at companies that trickle down and affect every employee and ultimately every client and customer. When we are achieving that at more of the largest Fortune 100 companies in the world, that’s societal change.
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