History Of Udemy

In May of 2010, Eren Bali, Gagan Biyani, and Oktay Caglar established Udemy, Inc., which falls under the category of an education technology company.

With hubs in Denver, Dublin, Austin, Melbourne, Istanbul, and Gurgaon, it has its headquarters in San Francisco, which is located in the state of California in the United States.

According to the platform, as of the 30th of September in the year 2024, it claimed to have nearly 75 million learners and more than one billion members enrolled in courses.

There are approximately 250,000 courses available on the site, and there are over 75,000 teachers who are offering courses in 75 different languages.

In addition to asserting that more than fifty percent of the Fortune 100 companies are Udemy Business customers, the company claims that it has nearly seventeen thousand customers who use Udemy Business.

In order to strengthen their abilities that are relevant to their jobs, students attend classes. Certain classes can be used to earn credit toward obtaining a technical certification. Udemy is a popular destination for corporate trainers who are looking to provide educational content for their business's staff.

A live virtual classroom was established by Eren Bali and Oktay Caglar, the founders of Udemy, in the year 2007, while they were residing in Turkey.

Two years after that, they relocated to Silicon Valley in order to establish a business. At the beginning of 2010, Bali, Oktay Caglar, and Gagan Biyani were the ones who started the website.

According to Gagan Biyani, the founders made an attempt to acquire investment from venture capital in February of 2010, but the proposal did not excite investors, and they were denied thirty times.

As a result of this, they undertook the development of the product via the use of bootstrapping and created Udemy, also known as "The Academy of You," in May of 2010.

Within a short period of time, one thousand teachers had developed around two thousand courses, and Udemy had roughly ten thousand users who had joined.

On the basis of this positive response from the market, they made the decision to undertake another round of financing, and by August, they had successfully secured one million dollars in venture capital.

In October 2011, the company raised an additional $3 million in Series A funding led by Groupon investors Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell, as well as 500 Global (previously 500 Startups) and MHS Capital

In December 2012, the company raised $12 million in Series B funding led by Insight Venture Partners, as well as Lightbank Capital, MHS Capital and Learn Capital, bringing Udemy's total funding to $16 million.

On April 22, 2014, the Wall Street Journal's digital edition reported that chief operating officer of Udemy, Dennis Yang, was named CEO, replacing Eren Bali

In May 2014, Udemy secured additional $32 million in a Series C fundraising, sponsored by Norwest Venture Partners, as well as Insight Venture Partners and MHS Capital

In June 2015, Udemy secured a $65 million Series D investment round, headed by Stripes.In order to establish a School of Skills in India, Udemy announced its collaboration with Skillsdox Inc., a Canadian online learning organization.

The Series D fundraising round that Udemy completed in June 2015 was for $65 million, and in June 2016, the company received $60 million from Naspers Ventures as a follow-up acquisition.

On February 5, 2019, Udemy made the announcement that Gregg Coccari had been appointed to the position of chief executive officer by the board of directors of the firm.

Benesse Holdings, Inc., a long-time partner in Japan, contributed fifty million dollars to Udemy in February of 2020, for which the company also disclosed a value of two billion dollars.

In November 2020, Udemy received $50 million at a $3.25 billion value spearheaded by Tencent Holdings.

On October 29, 2021, Udemy had its IPO in the US and is listed under the ticker UDMY

In 2024, Udemy revealed that it would be decreasing the proportion of income that academic labor earned