Most of that is in terms of re-skilling workers, including a "talent pipeline as-as-service" business whereby GA acts not only a a recruiter, but also as a trainer (with hiring companies paying the freight).

"Last fall we began mapping out on a white board with Adecco how we could work together, so we've been having off and on conversations with them," says General Assembly co-founder and CEO Jake Schwartz. "We'll be run as an independent entity."

ROI: General Assembly raised nearly $120 million in VC funding between 2011 and 2015, with a final round at a post-money valuation of around $440 million. That basically means the last investors like Advance Publications and Wellington Management will do a bit better than break even (due to the "preference stack") while early investors like Maveron and Initialized Capital should make sizable returns (the Series A post-money valuation, for example, was just around $20 million).

New York-based General Assembly was co-founded by Schwartz, Adam Pritzker, Matthew Brimer and Brad Hargreaves. It currently has around 500 employees and campuses in 20 cities.