When the coronavirus pandemic forced offices and schools to close their doors and move online last year, most of the white-collar workers and students were become online learners. Udemy, one of the largest online learning platforms on the internet, saw a 425% increase in the new course enrollments within the first month of the pandemic. San Francisco based company is taking advantage of this promising financial situation to file for a U.S. IPO.
Udemy will be listed on the Nasdaq under the symbol UDMY. Online course provider was last valued at $3.3 billion in November 2021 when it raised $50 million in Series F round of financing led by Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings. But it is expected to go public at a much higher valuation, potentially between $6 and $8 billion.
The edtech company’s corporate learning service called ‘Udemy Business‘ will be one of the most crucial selling point for the company. According to its SEC filings, 42% of the Fortune 100 companies used Udemy Business; Adidas, Booking.com, Pinterest, and the Japanese automaker Toyota are among those companies that use Udemy for their employee training and educational needs. Revenue generated from corporate learning service more than doubled last year and hopefully it will keep up the growth pace in the near future.
Nearly 50 million people use Udemy for online learning
Udemy, massive open online course provider, was founded in 2010 by Turkish entrepreneur Eren Bali. As of today, Udemy has nearly 50 million students, over 183,000 courses in 75 languages, and 65,000 instructors that can make money by simply creating an online course in any topic or context.
It is the third online education company that choose Nasdaq to file for an IPO this year. Coursera and Nerdy also went public recently, with the expectation of taking a bigger bite from the $200 billion online course market. Udemy took a hit from slower growth in the first six months of the year, but managed to rose its revenue 24.5 percent to $250.6 million. The company is still not profitable, net loss was $29.3 million.