Learning data is everywhere, but rarely where it's needed most.
Learning systems contain years of institutional memory: who learned what, which content mattered, where skills developed, what compliance evidence exists, and how people progressed. Too often, that information is fragmented, inconsistent, or locked inside platforms that were never designed to work together.
Arcs Learning exists to give organizations durable control of their learning data across LMSs, content platforms, business systems, and historical archives. We connect, normalize, govern, and activate that data so it can support safer migrations, trusted reporting, audit readiness, integrations, skills intelligence, and grounded AI. No rip-and-replace. No dependence on one vendor's roadmap.
Why Arcs
Deep learning technology expertise, grounded in practice.
Arcs Learning was founded by David Ells and Bill Conran, longtime learning technology partners who first worked together building Watershed and later led technology and commercial functions at Open LMS.
At Watershed, we helped large enterprises connect learning activity to performance and business outcomes. At Open LMS, we saw how the same underlying challenges affected higher education, government, associations, and enterprise learning teams. Different markets, different systems, same problem: valuable learning data was trapped, underused, and unprepared for what organizations needed next.
Arcs Learning brings together deep technical architecture and practical commercial judgment to solve that problem. Our experience spans the systems and decisions behind modern learning infrastructure, and includes:
Building SCORM Cloud and the world's first xAPI-compliant Learning Record Store
Creating and scaling enterprise learning analytics infrastructure
Leading a global, $30M+ ARR learning SaaS business serving millions of learners
Building enterprise markets and partnerships across learning analytics, LMS, compliance, and HR technology
Guiding buyers through complex migration, integration, reporting, compliance, and platform decisions
We know the architecture behind learning data and the organizational pressure behind the technology. That combination helps us move from technical complexity to practical outcomes without losing sight of governance, interoperability, or the people who rely on the systems.
Leadership
Built by learning technology operators.
David Ells
Cofounder and Head of Technology
David is a learning technology executive and software architect with more than 18 years of experience building SaaS platforms, data-intensive architectures, and enterprise learning systems. Before Arcs Learning, he served as Managing Director of Open LMS and CEO and CTO of Watershed. Earlier, at Rustici Software, he helped create SCORM Cloud and led development of the world's first xAPI-compliant Learning Record Store. David brings hands-on technical judgment and executive operating experience to the hard problems behind learning data, interoperability, governance, analytics, and AI.
Bill Conran
Cofounder and Head of Commercial
Bill brings more than 20 years of experience in enterprise learning and HR technology. Before Arcs Learning, he led global sales at Open LMS, commercial strategy and business development at Watershed, and growth for learning and compliance SaaS at UL Solutions. He has helped build new markets, develop data and ecosystem partnerships, and guide complex organizations toward better learning and business outcomes. Bill brings a practical buyer perspective to migration risk, reporting, compliance, skills visibility, platform lock-in, and AI readiness.
Our values
The operating principles that guide us.
01
Be very real
We communicate plainly, share what we know, and say when we do not know. No corporate theater, no hidden agenda, and no jargon used to disguise uncertainty.
02
Work with thoughtful urgency
The problems our customers bring us matter now. We move quickly, but never at the expense of care, clarity, security, or trust.
03
Embrace positive debate
Complex problems rarely have one obvious answer. We challenge ideas respectfully, assume good intent, make room for reflection, and change our minds when better evidence appears.
04
Seek constant improvement
We treat feedback and mistakes as inputs, not threats. Our work, our product, and our judgment should get better with every engagement.
05
Make others better
The point of better infrastructure is better work. We help our customers and their people make stronger decisions, act with more confidence, and create more value from learning.
Put your learning data to work.
Whether you are migrating platforms, consolidating systems, preparing for an audit, rebuilding reporting, or getting your data ready for AI, we can help you find the practical path forward.
