US-based online education platform MasterClass has added Evolution Media, a fund created by talent agency Creative Artists Agency and investment firm TPG, to its shareholders following an $80m series D round.
Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) led the round, which also featured Atomico, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Javelin Ventures and Advancit Capital.
MasterClass runs an online educational platform where users can access video-based courses and interactive lessons created and hosted by well-known experts, such as cooking classes by Michelin star chef and TV personality Gordon Ramsay.
The series D funding will allow MasterClass to grow its subscription service and launch courses in new categories, such as politics and business, to grow its offering from a current 39 classes to more than 50 by the end of the year.
Roseanne Wincek, an investor with IVP, will join the board of directors.
MasterClass has raised more than $135m in funding to date, including $35m in a series C round in March 2017 led by IVP with the backing of media group Bloomberg and telecoms firm Novel Group, which joined through respective subsidiaries Bloomberg Beta and Novel TMT.
NEA, Javelin, Advancit, GSV Acceleration and private investors Yan-David Erlich, Sam Lessin and Matthew Rutler also took part in the series C round.
Bloomberg Beta and Novel TMT had already taken part in a $15m series B round in 2016 alongside talent agency William Morris Endeavor’s investment arm WME Ventures, Advancit, Downey Ventures and private investors. NEA led the series B round.
David Rogier, co-founder and chief executive of MasterClass, said: “Educational systems, both online and off, have largely avoided recruiting those who have reached the top of their fields to be teachers because they didn’t think it could be done, and if it could, it wouldn’t be done well.
“It is a loss for humanity to miss out on learning from the masters among us. Early online education platforms tried to copy the physical classroom. That does not work. People who are out in the world perfecting their craft cannot teach in the traditional system. The problem is not the people, it is the system – so we are changing the system.”