Udemy plans to disrupt how education is delivered worldwide
Online-course marketplace Udemy has raised US$65m in a Series D funding round led by Stripes Group, in an effort to take advantage of seismic changes in how education is now consumed.
The latest investment came with additional support from Norwest Venture Partners and Insight Venture Partners. Stripes’ founder Ken Fox will join Udemy’s board of directors.
The company has reported a 200pc hike in revenues in the last 12 months.
Since launching in 2010, Udemy is now creating 2,000 courses a month with 30,000 courses available in total.
Transforming the world of education as we know it
More than 7m students from more than 190 countries are receiving courses from more than 16,000 instructors worldwide.
More than 30pc of Udemy students consume their courses on mobile devices like iPads, iPhones and Android mobile devices.
The established education system is failing to keep up with the modern workforce
Udemy previously raised US$32m in May 2014, US$12m in November 2012, US$3m in October 2011, and US$1m in August 2010.
Currently, 50pc of Udemy’s revenues comes from outside the US, and the company will use the additional funding to accelerate its international expansion, with a particular focus on east and south Asia, Latin America and western Europe.
The company has already taken a number of spaces at the Dogpatch Labs co-working space in Dublin as part of its international rollout.
“The established education system is failing to keep up with the modern workforce,” said Udemy CEO Dennis Yang.
“By bringing a true marketplace model to education, we’re giving people unparalleled access to their choice of sought-after skills so they can continue growing and reaching their goals.
“With Udemy’s web and mobile offerings, students access content and experts where and when they want to. We’ve built the marketplace so that students directly impact the kind of content available, allowing the platform to grow and evolve over time.”
