US-based online education platform Coursera secured $103m yesterday in a series E round led by online education and recruitment firm Seek Group.
Future Fund, Australia’s sovereign wealth fund, also took part in the round, as did venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA). It valued Coursera at more than $1bn, a source close to the company told TechCrunch.
Coursera offers access to some 3,200 courses provided by more than 150 universities through its online platform. It has also added 14 full university degrees to its offering across areas such as business administration, data science and public health.
The company also operates an enterprise version, Coursera for Business, which allows governments and companies to train their workers in new skills. It has attracted more than 1,800 clients to date.
Coursera emerged out of Stanford University in 2012 and was co-founded by two professors of computer science: Daphne Koller, who left the university in 2014, and Andrew Ng. The series E funding will support international growth and the further development of its product.
Coursera has raised about $313m in funding to date, having closed a $64m series D round in 2017 featuring NEA, GSV Asset Management, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), Learn Capital and family office Lampert Foundation.
Times Internet, the digital services subsidiary of media company Bennett, Coleman & Co, took part in a $61.1m series C round in 2015 that was led by NEA and backed by KPCB, Learn Capital, GSV, the Singaporean state-owned EDBI and the World Bank-owned International Finance Corporation (IFC).
Higher education provider Laureate Education invested in Coursera’s $63m series B round in 2013 alongside NEA, GSV, Learn Capital, IFC, KPCB, Yuri Milner, University of Pennsylvania, California Institute of Technology and three unnamed university investors, taking its overall funding to $85m.
