OpenClassrooms, a France-based online learning platform, has secured €6m in funding and has announced plans to expand into the UK and Spain.
The funding, fronted by two capital firms and a French investor, will support the platform’s goal to train 20 million people by 2020.
Established in 2013, OpenClassrooms is a free learning platform for coding and digital courses, focusing on skills-based learning.
“By 2020 20 million people will have been trained on OpenClassrooms for the jobs of the future”
The platform currently boasts two million users a month.
With funds injection, the company is expanding beyond France to the UK and Spain, which it says are both markets experiencing a digital skills gap.
While OpenClassrooms already offers diplomas in both English and Spanish, as well as in French, from next month it will localise its services in the UK and Spain to users and companies.
“OpenClassrooms was founded to revolutionise education with training and professional integration as key objectives,” said Pierre Dubuc, CEO and co-founder of OpenClassrooms.
“With the support of our investors, by 2020 20 million people will have been trained on OpenClassrooms for the jobs of the future.”
Citizen Capital, Bpifrance and individual investor Xavier Niel have provided the funding. Alven Capital previously invested in the platform.
“We have chosen to invest in OpenClassrooms because we like their ambition to revolutionise education,” said Niel.
“It is crucial to provide the widest possible access to the jobs of the future.”
“We have chosen to invest in OpenClassrooms because we like their ambition to revolutionise education”
OpenClassrooms is also the only online learning platform to have courses recognised by the French state through its partnership with IESA Multimedia, based in Paris.
The platform offers a bachelor’s level multimedia project manager course delivered exclusively on the MOOC platform.
Taking on average one year to complete, the course is taught in French and doesn’t require any prerequisites however state-recognised courses are offered for a fee.
For additional support, those taking the course can also hold video conferences with their mentor over the platform.
The company also signed an agreement with government agency, Pôle Emploi in October last year, that enables job seekers to register for a subscription for free. The move corresponds with President Hollande’s plan to train 500,000 job seekers in an effort to tackle unemployment in France.
OpenClassrooms has established a number of partnerships with universities, such as Sciences Po, and companies including Microsoft, to deliver its courses.
