What Burning Glass Technologies does

Burning Glass Technologies operates in the labor market intelligence space under the Lightcast brand, following its 2021 merger with Emsi. The company aggregates real-time labor market data from 160,000+ sources, including job postings, government reports, skills databases, compensation records, and professional profiles, and applies NLP-powered parsing and analytics to extract actionable workforce intelligence. Its flagship product, Lightcast Analyst (formerly Labor Insight), provides educators, employers, and policymakers with visibility into hiring trends, in-demand skills, emerging occupations, and regional workforce dynamics. Supporting this platform are the Parse API (formerly LENS), which exposes NLP-based resume and job posting parsing programmatically, and Community Consulting Services, which deliver custom research engagements.

The company serves three primary customer verticals: Education (universities, community colleges, workforce development organizations), Enterprise (employers and recruiters), and Government (federal, state, and local agencies). Five additional verticals, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Manufacturing, Real Estate, Sales & Marketing, and Staffing, are served as secondary segments. Revenue is generated through a mix of subscription software (Lightcast Analyst), API access (Parse API), professional consulting services, and managed data warehouse integration, with pricing quote-based and not publicly disclosed. Geographic reach spans North America, the United Kingdom, mainland Europe, and Asia Pacific.

Go-to-market combines enterprise field sales, API-first distribution for technical buyers, and a self-serve trial option (Try Lightcast) for SMB and individual users. Marketing reaches prospects through content, newsletters, industry events, and partnerships with major generative AI platforms (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Grok) for AI-powered summarization. Compliance posture is enterprise-grade: ISO 27001, GDPR, CCPA, Privacy Shield, and TX-RAMP. Ownership is private, with Providence Equity Partners and PSG Equity among known institutional backers from a 2015 funding round. Leadership includes Matthew Sigelman (President) and Christopher Dedels (Vice President of Product Management).

Name

Burning Glass Technologies

Legal name

Lightcast

Website

https://burning-glass.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1999

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

251–500 employees

Short description

Burning Glass Technologies, operating as Lightcast, aggregates real-time labor market data from 160,000+ sources and uses NLP-powered analytics to deliver workforce intelligence to educators, employers, and government agencies globally.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Cambridge

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Software Subscriptions: SaaS platform access through Lightcast Analyst featuring real-time labor market data and analytics. Subscription-based model with tiered access.
2. API Access: Parse API providing programmatic access to resume and job posting parsing capabilities for technical customers and integration partners.
3. Consulting Services: Community consulting services for organizations seeking collaborative research and custom workforce intelligence analysis.
4. Data Warehouse Integration: Direct warehouse integration services for enterprise customers with ongoing support to maximize insights.

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Burning Glass Technologies (now operating as Lightcast) aggregates labor market data from 160,000+ sources into a unified analytics platform that delivers real-time analysis of job postings, hiring trends, in-demand skills, emerging occupations, and regional workforce dynamics. Its core commercial offerings are the Lightcast Analyst SaaS platform (formerly Labor Insight), the Parse API (formerly LENS) for NLP-powered resume and job posting parsing, and Community Consulting Services for custom workforce research.

Product overview

Burning Glass Technologies (now Lightcast) offers a unified labor market intelligence platform built on real-time job posting data. The core product is Lightcast Analyst™ (formerly Labor Insight), a comprehensive analytics platform providing real-time job posting analysis for educators, employers, and policymakers. Supporting this platform is the Parse API (formerly LENS), an NLP-powered parser for extracting resume and job posting data. Data is accessible via software, APIs, cloud storage, and direct warehouse integration. The company aggregates data from 160,000+ sources including job postings, government reports, skills databases, and compensation records, turning raw information into actionable workforce intelligence. Consulting services are available for specialized research collaborations.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Lightcast Analyst: Real-time analysis platform for job postings used by educators, employers, and policymakers to understand hiring trends, in-demand skills, emerging occupations, and regional workforce dynamics. Originally called Labor Insight.
• LENS

Products and services

• Lightcast Analyst Flagship SaaS analytics platform (formerly Labor Insight) providing real-time analysis of job postings, hiring trends, in-demand skills, emerging occupations, and regional workforce dynamics for educators, employers, and policymakers.
• Parse API Resume and job posting parser using natural language processing to extract and integrate labor market data, enabling organizations to recruit, benchmark, and act on job market intelligence programmatically.
• Community Consulting Services Professional consulting services enabling collaboration on new research, workforce analysis, and data-informed decision-making for education, enterprise, and public sector clients.
• Data Warehouse Integration

Named customers3 records

Segments8 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability4 records

Feature4 records

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• Indeed: Indeed operates the world's largest job board and increasingly publishes labor market data products (Indeed Hiring Lab). It overlaps with Lightcast as a job-postings data source and analytics provider, though its primary business remains marketplace/matchmaking.
• TalentNeuron (Gartner): TalentNeuron, now part of Gartner, delivers workforce planning and labor market analytics to enterprise talent acquisition and HR strategy teams. It competes with Lightcast in the talent intelligence category but is bundled into Gartner's broader research portfolio.
• Glassdoor (Indeed): Glassdoor provides company reviews, salary data, and job postings, and is part of the Indeed/Recruit ecosystem. Its salary and employer data overlaps with Lightcast's compensation and employer benchmarking offerings.

Emerging players

• Pave: Pave provides compensation benchmarking and workforce data products for HR and talent teams. It overlaps with Lightcast's compensation data modules and competes for similar enterprise HR analytics budgets.
• Adzuna: Adzuna aggregates job postings globally and publishes labor market data products and indices. It is a smaller, emerging competitor in the real-time job postings intelligence space, particularly strong in the UK and Europe.
• Kompetenz (workforce analytics): Kompetenz is a workforce analytics vendor offering skills and labor market intelligence to enterprise and government buyers. It is an emerging player with overlapping capabilities to Lightcast's skills taxonomy and labor market offerings.

Direct peers

• Revelio Labs: Revelio Labs provides workforce and labor market intelligence derived from public professional profiles and alternative data sources. It competes directly with Lightcast in delivering skills, hiring trend, and employee movement analytics to enterprise and government buyers.
• LinkedIn (Talent Insights): LinkedIn Talent Insights offers workforce analytics and labor market intelligence built on LinkedIn's professional network data. It is the closest direct competitor to Lightcast Analyst in the talent intelligence category, serving similar enterprise HR, workforce planning, and recruiting buyers.

Others

• O*NET (U.S. Department of Labor): O*NET is the US government's free occupational skills and labor market information database. It competes indirectly with Lightcast's skills taxonomy and occupation intelligence offerings, particularly in education and workforce development contexts.
• Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS): The US Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes authoritative labor market statistics (employment, wages, occupational outlook). It is not a direct commercial competitor but its free public data sets the price floor and reference baseline for Lightcast's paid products.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/Burning_Glass
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/138182

Compliance5 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors2 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A2 records

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Burning Glass Technologies