Online Learning Marketplace Udemy Raises $32M

TechCrunch May 8, 2014
Long time player in the online learning space, Udemy, which has built a skills-based marketplace where individual tutors can sell their skills and learners can get access to courses (both paid and free), has just closed a $32 million Series C funding round, led by Norwest Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors Insight Venture Partners and MHS Capital.
Udemy raised $1 million in seed funding back in 2010 with its pitch to democratize online learning, pulling in further tranches of cash — including a $12 million in Series B funding at the end of 2012. It’s raised $48 million in total to date.
While traditional academic institutions have been putting courses online, via the MOOCs movement powering the likes of EdX and Coursera, Udemy is a marketplace where any individual with skills to sell can create and upload courses. It also offers tools for tutors to build the courses — making it closer to a startup such as Eliademy than the MOOCs giants.
Udemy’s educational content is also skewed towards the skills workers need to remain employable, rather than the academic course content offered by many MOOCs. The company also targets enterprises — offering itself as a platform for fulfilling staff training requirements.
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