The pandemic has fueled investor interest in online learning.
Online learning platform Udemy announced today that it had raised an additional $50 million, boosting its valuation from the $2 billion it reported in February to $3.25 billion. The new round brings the San Francisco-based company’s total funding to more than $273 million. Bloomberg reported that the lead investor in the new round is Chinese tech company Tencent Holdings.
Udemy’s news comes the same day that online language-learning app maker Duolingo announced its valuation had surged to $2.4 billion as a result of a new funding round.
The pandemic has fueled investor interest in online learning. People stuck at home, many of them newly unemployed, are looking to learn new skills or at least pass the time in productive ways.
Udemy offers more than 130,000 classes, most of which sell for just $10 to $20. Phil Ebiner, a popular instructor Forbes profiled in June, has a selection of more than 100 photography and video editing courses. They consist of pre-recorded videos, quizzes and message board discussions where he answers questions from students.
Udemy makes it easy for people to become instructors. They merely need to satisfy six items on a checklist of minimum requirements like posting at least 30 minutes of video content per course. All subject matter is welcome aside from a shortlist of restricted topics like porn, firearms and hate speech. Users rate instructors and the most popular courses attract the greatest number of customers.
The company was founded in 2009 by Eren Bali, 36, who was on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in 2014. He grew up in an impoverished village in southeastern Turkey where he pursued his math obsession by researching problems on the Web. He still serves as Udemy’s chair. The company has grown into one of the most popular online learning sites with 35 million learners. It is the only site where instructors have near complete freedom to create the courses of their choice. During the pandemic, the most popular classes have included sourdough bread baking and best practices for Zoom videoconferencing.
In October Udemy announced that its business division, which sells annual subscriptions for $360 per user to companies including Adidas and Toyota, had exceeded $100 million in annual recurring revenue. Two sources with knowledge of the company’s finances told Forbes in June that revenue would likely exceed $400 million this year.
Also in June, when Forbes ran a feature profile of the company, CEO Gregg Coccari said Udemy would be profitable if it weren’t planning to hire 200 people this year and investing in overseas expansion. It has courses in 65 languages and customers in 190 countries.
“This year upended everything about how we live and work, and people everywhere turned to online learning to help them meet new challenges,” said Coccari in a statement today. “We’re perfectly positioned to meet these demands and help drive success for individuals, businesses, and governments.”
Bloomberg is reporting that Udemy could go public as early as next year.
In February 2018, I took on a new job managing and writing Forbes’ education coverage. I’d spent the previous two years on the Entrepreneurs team, following six years
In February 2018, I took on a new job managing and writing Forbes’ education coverage. I’d spent the previous two years on the Entrepreneurs team, following six years writing for the Leadership channel. My mission with education is to explore the intersection of education and business. I’m recruiting contributors and also looking for my own stories. I’ve been at Forbes since 1995, writing about everything from books to billionaires. Among my favorite stories: South Africa’s first black billionaire, Patrice Motsepe, and British diamond jewelry mogul Laurence Graff, both of whom built their vast fortunes from nothing. At Forbes magazine I also did a stint editing the lifestyle section and I used to edit opinion pieces by the likes of John Bogle and Gordon Bethune. I got my job at Forbes through a brilliant libertarian economist, Susan Lee, whom I used to put on television at MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. Before that I covered law and lawyers for journalistic stickler, harsh taskmaster and the best teacher a young reporter could have had, Steven Brill.
