Udemy

History

In 2007, Udemy founder Eren Bali built software for a live virtual classroom while living in Turkey. He saw potential in making the product free for everyone, and moved to Silicon Valley to find a company two years later. The site was launched by Bali, Oktay Caglar and Gagan Biyani in early 2010.

In February 2010, the founders tried to raise venture capital funding, but the idea failed to impress investors and they were rejected 30 times, according to Gagan Biyani. In response to this, they bootstrapped the development of the product and launched Udemy—"The Academy of You"—in May 2010.

Within a few months, 1,000 instructors had created about 2,000 courses, and Udemy had nearly 10,000 registered users. Based on this favorable market reaction, they decided to attempt another round of financing, and raised $1 million in venture funding by August. This sum was significantly more than they had originally sought when approaching investors just months earlier.

In October 2011, the company raised an additional $3 million in Series A funding led by Groupon investors Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell, as well as 500 Startups and MHS Capital.

In December 2012, the company raised $12 million in Series B funding led by Insight Venture Partners, as well as Lightbank Capital, MHS Capital and Learn Capital, bringing Udemy’s total funding to $16 million.

On April 22, 2014, the Wall Street Journal's Digital edition reported that Dennis Yang, Chief Operating Officer of Udemy was named CEO, replacing Eren Bali.

In May 2014, Udemy raised another $32 million in a Series C funding, led by Norwest Venture Partners, as well as Insight Venture Partners and MHS Capital.

In June 2015, Udemy raised a $65 million Series D financing round, led by Stripes Group. Now Udemy joined another online learning house Skillsdox Inc of Canada to open up School of Skills in India.

About Udemy.com

Udemy serves as a platform that allows instructors to build online courses on topics of their choosing. Using Udemy’s course development tools they can upload video, PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, audio, zip files and live classes to create courses. Instructors can also engage and interact with users via online discussion boards.

Courses are offered across a breadth of categories, including business and entrepreneurship, academics, the arts, health and fitness, language, music, and technology. Most classes are in practical subjects such as Excel software or using an iPhone camera. Udemy also offers Udemy for Business, enabling businesses access to a targeted suite of over 1,300 training courses on topics from digital marketing tactics to office productivity, design, management, programming, and more. With Udemy for Business, organizations can also create custom learning portals for corporate training.

Udemy offers paid and free courses, depending on the instructor.

Instructor compensation from tuition varies based on who invests in marketing to attract students to Udemy. Instructors earn 97% of all tuition revenues if the instructor's own reputation or marketing attracts the student. Udemy retains 50% of the earnings if the student is attracted by the site's own marketing or other coursework, and the instructor earns just 25% of the tuition if a Udemy promotional affiliate attracts the student to the site and course. In the latter case, the affiliate earns 50% of the tuition, and the remaining 50% is split between Udemy and the instructor. In 2015, the top 10 instructors made more than $17 million in total revenue.

Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)

Udemy is part of the growing MOOC movement available outside the traditional university system, and has been noted for the variety of courses offered.

Mobile

In April 2013, Udemy offered an Apple iOS app, allowing students to take classes directly from iPhones; The Android version was launched in January 2014. As of January 2014, the iOS app had been downloaded over 1 million times, and 20 percent of Udemy users access their courses via mobile.

Reception

Udemy has been discussed in The New York Times, The China Post, Fast Company, the BBC YPN and TechCrunch, with Mashable noting "Udemy offers an experience that rivals the real classroom, and should prove to be a useful utility for teachers and students of all subject matters."

In 2014, Forbes named Udemy cofounder Eren Bali as part of their "30 Under 30" of "the brightest stars in 15 different fields under the age of 30."

Noted businessman Jack Welch has developed an online MBA program, offered through the Jack Welch Management Institute (JWMI) at Strayer University, which acquired JWMI assets in November 2011. Udemy became the MOOC platform for the institute's Welch Way courseware in November 2012, and promoted this Jack Welch connection.

Piracy concerns

In November 2015, Udemy was accused of publishing and profiting off of pirated courses, although no evidence was provided supporting that Udemy was profiting from this. The CEO, Dennis Yang, answered the accusations in a blog post, looking specifically at one accusation and stating that Udemy did not profit from that instance of piracy.