Startup Idea and Innovation of Udemy
Udemy is one of the leading learning platforms out there offering various courses belonging to different categories. It has a lot of valuable resources on development, business, finance and accounting, IT and software, office productivity, lifestyle, marketing, music, and many more.
Currently, it has around 183,000 online videos with a lot of additional content monthly. The platform has created a global community of 46 million learners and 60,000 instructors for its more than 175,000 courses. As of September 2021, it has 644 million course enrollments, 9,5000 of this number are enterprises.
Its courses start at $13.99, including those tackling Python, Excel, Web Development, JavaScript, Drawing, and Social Media Marketing.
Startup Timeline and History of Udemy
- 2009 – Udemy was founded by Eren Bali, Gagan Biyani, and Oktay Caglar.
- 2016 – The private company acquired the educational software Talentbuddy in February of 2016 .
- 2020 – The company received various investments through a Secondary Market and Series funding round.
- 2021 – The company acquired Corp U, a leadership development platform for online learners .
Founder and Key People
- Eren Bali
Eren Bali is a co-founder and currently a board member of Udemy. He also served as the Chief Executive Officer of the company for four years from its founding until April 2014. Aside from Udemy, he is a co-founder and CEO of Carbon Health. He studied Computer Engineering and Mathematics at the Middle East Technical University.
- Gagan Biyani
Gagan Biyani is the co-founder of many companies like Udemy where he was the President, Growth Hackers Conference, and Mave where he is the CEO. Aside from the companies he founded, he was a Business Analyst at Accenture, Advisor and Interim Head of Demand Marketing at Lyft, and CEO at Spring: Eat Well. He obtained his Economics degree from the University of California, Berkeley
- Oktay Caglar
Oktay Caglay is another co-founder of Udemy. He also worked as COO and co-founder of Knowband, another knowledge-sharing platform. He studied Business Administration and Industry Engineering at the Middle East Technical University.
- Gregg Coccari
Gregg Coccari is currently the CEO of Udemy. He has extensive experience in being the CEO of organizations such as Teleflora, Net Quote, Futuredontics, Inc., and Stella and Chewy’s. He earned his Bachelor’s degree from Colgate University and his Master of Business Administration from The Wharton School.
Funding Sources and Financial Profile
The company was able to acquire a total of $311.4 in funding through 21 funding rounds, receiving its most recent one in September 2021 through a Secondary Market. It currently has a recorded number of 34 investors, with 11 lead investors.
Some of its latest investors are Alexander Rugaev, Shares Pro, Thunder Future, Investlink Holdings, Raison Asset Management, 10X Capital, and QD Ventures. It also received funds from Learn Capital, Tencent, and Winter Capital Advisors during the Series F round.
Major Competitors
- Skillshare – https://www.skillshare.com/
- Teachable – https://teachable.com/
- EdX – https://www.edx.org/
- Global Knowledge Training – https://www.globalknowledge.com/
- Degreed – https://degreed.com/
- MasterClass – https://www.masterclass.com/
Useful Links
References:
[2] https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/52975-99#patents
[3] https://business.udemy.com/corpu-acquisition/
[4] https://www.linkedin.com/in/erenbali/
