US-based online education platform Coursera received $130m in series F funding on Friday from investors including recruitment firm Seek Group.
Venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA) led the round, which valued Coursera at $2.5bn, according to The Information. Kleiner Perkins, Learn Capital, SuRo Capital Corp and G Squared also took part.
Spun out of Stanford University in 2012, Coursera provides free and paid-for online classes ranging from graphic design and coding to full-fledged university degrees, in partnership with more than 200 universities and educational organisations.
The series F proceeds will go to product development and international expansion in addition to improving the company’s engineering capabilities and growing the number of courses on offer. It has already launched tools to retrain unemployed workers and help universities deliver modules to students remotely.
Coursera has raised approximately $443m in total, Seek Group having led a $103m series E round in April 2019 that included NEA and Australian sovereign wealth fund Future Fund.
The series E round valued the company at more than $1bn and followed a $64m series D in 2017 that was backed by NEA, Kleiner Perkins predecessor Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), GSV Asset Management, Learn Capital and Lampert Foundation at an $800m valuation.
NEA led Coursera’s $61.1m series C round two years earlier, investing with Times Internet, the digital services arm of media group Bennett, Coleman & Co, as well as KPCB, Learn Capital, GSV, the Singaporean state-owned EDBI and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) at a $500m valuation.
Higher education provider Laureate Education took part in a $63m series B round for the company in 2013 alongside University of Pennsylvania, California Institute of Technology, NEA, GSV Asset Management, KPCB, Learn Capital, IFC, Yuri Milner, and three unnamed university investors.
Image courtesy of Coursera.
