Online education startup Coursera closes $64 mn deal, takes total corpus to $210.3 mn

Coursera, an online education platform, has secured $64 million in a series D funding round from its existing investors. The latest round of investment came from GSV Asset Management, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers (KPCB), Learn Capital and new investor Lampert Foundation, the company said in a statement.

The startup counts India as second largest market after the US. It will use the funds to enhance its enterprise business under which it offers customized courses to companies and for product innovation.

With the latest round of funding, Coursera has raised a sum of $210.3 million till date. The organisation has played an important role in popularizing the MOOCs (massive open online courses) phenomena across countries in the world.

“As the industry leader in online higher education, we have a massive opportunity ahead of us in preparing people, companies, and governments to respond to the changing nature of jobs and to take on the urgent challenges of workforce transformation,” said Rick Levin, chief executive officer of Coursera.

“This round of funding enables us to continue innovating across our platform to deliver better learner outcomes, and to accelerate the momentum we have in our new initiatives—enterprise and degrees," he added.

Business constitutes one of the company’s biggest avenues for growth. The corporate e-learning market was worth $12 billion in the US alone in 2015, with some estimates pegging the figure at $31 billion globally by 2020, said a report by Technavio. According to a study conducted by technology major Google and KPMG, the online education industry in India is estimated to witness a growth of eight times and reach $1.96 billion by 2021.

Coursera was launched in 2012, has 25 million registered users and offers over 2000 courses and 180 specializations. It claims to have more than 2 million registered users in India.

It has Axis Bank in India, L’Oreal, Paypal and Air France KLM among its corporate customers.

Image credit: Coursera