Praxis Labs

Praxis Labs: Immersive VR Training, Now Part of Torch

Praxis Labs was an immersive learning platform using virtual and mixed reality to build empathy and inclusive leadership skills through workplace scenario simulations. The company was founded in 2019 by Elise Smith, who served as CEO, and Heather Shen, who served as CPO, while both were graduate students at Stanford (PRNewswire, October 2021; Crunchbase, 2026). Smith became one of the few Black women to raise more than $1 million in venture capital when Praxis Labs closed a $3.2 million seed round in early 2021, and the company followed with a $15.5 million Series A in October 2021 co-led by Norwest Venture Partners and Emerson Collective, with investors including Penny Jar Capital (backed by Steph Curry), Concrete Rose Capital, and SoftBank's SB Opportunity Fund (Forbes; PRNewswire, 2021). In June 2023, Accenture invested in Praxis Labs through its Black Founders Development Program, part of Accenture's Project Spotlight initiative supporting Black technology founders (Accenture Newsroom, 2023). In 2025, leadership development company Torch acquired Praxis Labs, with Smith and Shen joining Torch as Head of AI Growth and Head of AI Product, respectively (People of Color in Tech, 2025).

What Praxis Labs did

Praxis Labs combined evidence-based curriculum, learning science, and immersive VR and mixed-reality workplace scenarios to simulate first-hand incidents of bias and discrimination, aiming to build the empathy that Smith and Shen argued a one-hour DEI talk simply cannot (Forbes, 2021). The flagship curriculum, called Pivotal Experiences, was designed to carry learners through sustained practice rather than a single session, based on the founders' observation that one-time learning environments don't produce lasting behavior change. Early test partners included Uber, eBay, Amazon, and Google, and the company later worked with Zoom, Target, and others (Washington Post, 2021; People of Color in Tech, 2025).

Where it fits

Praxis Labs' technology and team are now part of Torch's broader leadership development platform, which continues to serve enterprise clients seeking immersive, skills-based inclusion and leadership training. Organizations that specifically want VR-based perspective-taking simulations for building empathy around bias and inclusion, rather than lecture-based DEI training, are the clearest fit for the underlying technology.

Why this matters for people leaders

The research consensus on most one-off DEI training is discouraging: a single seminar rarely changes behavior in any lasting way, yet US corporations have historically spent billions of dollars annually on exactly that format. Praxis Labs' bet, that immersive, first-person simulation builds empathy in a way a lecture cannot, and that sustained practice matters more than a single session, reflects a genuine attempt to fix a format that the industry itself has recognized isn't working. For organizations focused on Culture, Performance, and Retention, that's worth understanding even beyond Praxis Labs specifically: the mode and duration of a training intervention matters as much as its content, and technology that supports repeated, first-person practice is a meaningfully different bet than a slide deck delivered once a year.

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