San Francisco-based online learning platform Udemy has received a $60m investment from Africa’s most highly-valued listed company, Cape Town-based Naspers.
The funding tranche from the technology and media company’s investment arm, Naspers Ventures, will fuel Udemy’s ongoing international expansion and product development.
“We are just at the beginning of realising the full potential of online learning”
The investment comes a year after Udemy secured $65m in a series D round of financing. Udemy is an online marketplace connecting instructors to lifelong learners around the world.
Since the series D funding, it has surpassed 11 million students and 50 million enrolments from more than 190 countries, and acquired learn to code platform Talentbuddy. It currently offers more than 40,000 courses in 80 languages.
It has also launched strategic international partnerships in Brazil, South Korea, the Middle East and Singapore. Naspers said the new funding injection will help the platform to further expand international partnerships.
The funding will also be used for hiring and product development, in order to multiply its course offering and target more paying subscribers in international markets.
“With two-thirds of our students and over half of our instructors located outside the US, Udemy has made huge strides in opening access to learning and teaching opportunities worldwide, yet we are just at the beginning of realising the full potential of online learning,” commented CEO Dennis Yang.
Yang said the partnership with Naspers will “invigorate [the company’s] efforts to bring Udemy to even more learners and experts around the world”.
Following the deal, Larry Illg, CEO of Naspers Ventures, is joining Udemy’s Board of Directors.
“Udemy has built a technology platform that will transform education on a global scale and we are eager to help them with further expansion,” Illg said.
This is Naspers’s second venture in the edtech sphere, after investing $15m in homework helper app, Brainly.
“These first two investments in edtech solidify our belief that education globally can be transformed with the right technology platforms,” Illg wrote on the company’s blog.
“They both have truly innovative approaches to increasing the utility and value of education. They have also shown the appeal of their ideas across borders, and are primed for significant international growth with Naspers support.”
