Udemy, a US-based digital learning marketplace backed by distance learning service Benesse and internet group Prosus, filed for an initial public offering yesterday with a $100m placeholder target.
Founded in 2010, Udemy has built an online platform that helps enterprise and individual learners acquire new skills through more than 183,000 courses spanning 75 languages.
Investors including venture capital firm Learn Capital took part in Udemy’s $50m series F round in November 2020 at a $3.25bn valuation, taking the company’s total funding to $283m. Winter Capital revealed five months later it was among the participants.
The company had received $50m from Benesse in a February 2020 round that valued it at $2bn. It came in the wake of a $125m series D round four years before featuring Prosus Ventures (then Naspers Ventures, under media and e-commerce group Naspers), Stripes Group, Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) and Insight Partners.
NVP, Insight Partners and Learn Capital were existing investors, and the company’s other shareholders include Lightbank, MHS Capital, 500 Startups and Signia Venture Partners.
Entities affiliated with Insight Partners hold 34.1% of Udemy’s shares, followed by Prosus Ventures’ MIH Edtech Investments vehicle (13.9%), NVP (10.1%) and Stripes (5.6%).
The offering is set to take place on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Citigroup, BofA Securities, Jefferies and Truist Securities are book-running managers and are joined by co-managers KeyBanc Capital Markets, Piper Sandler, William Blair, Baird and Needham & Company.
