Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Articulate.
In the last ten years, E-learning courses have evolved significantly from relatively simple ‘click-next’ PowerPoint-based training to rich interactive learning experiences. Several tools, like Storyline, made it possible for individuals without programming expertise to unleash their creativity in ways that were impossible before.
Now even newcomers to E-learning can create courses by incorporating more gaming elements, interactive videos, and realistic scenarios to engage modern learners more meaningfully.
Articulate has emerged as an innovative E-learning solutions provider that removes technological barriers to imagination and creativity. This article will let you know every important detail about Articulate, from its founders, startup story, and funding to investors, growth, business model, and products.
Articulate is a SaaS training and development platform that develops E-learning software, content, and resources to change how the world learns. The company develops creator tools for creating, distributing, and managing online training courses for learners.
120,000+ organizations across 172 countries, including all 100 of the Fortune 100, have already curated over 4 million courses using Articulate online training apps.
Articulate – Industry
Articulate operates in the E-learning industry. E-learning is typically a mode of delivering knowledge to the learners via electronic modes, like videos, audio, e-books, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, and other electronic tools. Moreover, e-learning today has become integral to almost every major enterprise as it enhances employees’ knowledge and performance.
With the global E-learning market size projected to grow from $197,00 billion in 2020 to $840.11 billion by 2030 at 17.5% CAGR from 2023 to 2030, the industry provides plenty of growth opportunities. The rise in remote learning during Covid-19 and higher demand for low-cost, convenient learning systems are two significant factors that boosted the market’s growth.
In addition to Articulate, Adobe, Blackboard, Coursera, Aptara, and BYJU are some top companies in the E-learning industry.
Articulate – Founders and Team
Adam Schwartz – Founder and Executive Chairman, Articulate
Adam Schwartz is the founder of Articulate and holds the company’s Executive Chairman position. He has been the ex-Advisor of TrueFort and Merida Capital Partners. He is a Board Member at New Frontier Data. In addition, Adam is an active angel investor in 100+ innovative tech companies and serves on the boards of Videolicious, Embedly, and others.
Articulate is led by Lucy Suros as its CEO, and the company is a team of more than 400 employees.
Articulate – Startup Story
Articulate was founded in 2002 by Adam Schwartz with his life savings. The company was started as a plug-in for PowerPoint. Today, it is a software service that enables everyone to deliver training, even if an individual is not a training professional.
In 2003, it launched Articulate Presenter 3 and Articulate Server. Articulate Studio 1 came to life in 2004, and Articulate Studio in 2005. The company also has the industry’s largest community, i.e., E-learning Heroes, developed in 2012.
With the launch of Articulate 360 in 2016, Articulate revolutionized the E-learning course development market. In 2020, the company introduced Rise.com, which equips organizations with everything they require to create, track, and manage their online training in a single complete system.
Articulate – Mission and Vision
The vision of the company is to empower people to live better lives. Articulate is committed to providing the best value to its customers and doing right by its employees.
Articulate has two main products. One is a set of tools used by companies building training solutions to connect to an enterprise learning management system. The other product targets small and middle-sized businesses or departments in the enterprise.
Articulate’s platform enables users to create custom, interactive courses that can work on every device with no manual tweaking. It allows clients to curate E-learning courses for their learning management system.
Articulate – Revenue Model
The annual subscription rates of Articulate 360 are- ‘Articulate 360 Teams’ for $1,399 and ‘Articulate 360 Personal’ for $1,099.
Rise.com offers a ‘Starter Plan’ for $399 per month, a ‘Growth Plan’ for $799 per month, a ‘Midsize Plan’ for $1,299 per month, and a ‘Large Plan’ for $1,999 per month.
Articulate – Products and Services
Articulate offers 3 training apps, i.e., Articulate 360 and Rise.com.
Articulate – Funding and Investors
Articulate has undertaken only 1 funding round and raised a whopping amount of $1.5 billion. 3 investors fund the company, including Blackstone Accelerates Group, ICONIQ Growth, and General Atlantic.
Date
Round
Number of Investors
Money Raised
Lead Investor
July 1, 2021
Series A
3
$1.5 billion
General Atlantic
Articulate – Patents and Trademarks
Articulate has registered with 2 trademarks, and ‘Scientific and Technological Services’ is the most popular class.
Articulate – Growth
Articulates’ annual revenue in 2022 was estimated to be $77.3 million ($185,492 revenue per employee). With 40K customers in 2023, the company hit $29.4 million in revenue. Its post-money valuation in 2022 was $3.8 billion. Monthly visits growth of the company’s website is 20.91%, with 4,515,684 visits each month.
Introduction To Articulate Storyline 360 – A Quick Overview
Articulate – Social Media Presence
With core product marketing, customer advocacy, product content, and content marketing, Articulate significantly focuses on social media marketing and, thus, have considerable followers on multiple social media platforms.
Social Media Platform
Followers
LinkedIn
69.6K
Facebook
14K
Twitter
7.5K
Articulate – Partners
Articulate has partnered with BlendToLearn, TicTac, Strabeans, and many other technology and channel partners.
Articulate – Awards and Achievements
Some of the awards that Articulate received are as follows:
Articulate 360 won TrustRadius 2021 Most Loved Product Award
Articulate 360 won 2 TrustRadius Awards- ‘Best Customer Support’ and ‘Best Feature Set.’
Articulate 360 earned 2 gold medals in the 2022 Brandon Hall Excellence in Technology Awards
2020 Tech Cares Award from TrustRadius
People’s Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite New Products 2020 Winner
In 2023, Articulate is going to introduce a new training application named Reach 360.
FAQs
What does Articulate do?
Articulate is a SaaS training and development platform that develops E-learning software, content, and resources to change how the world learns. The company develops creator tools for creating, distributing, and managing online training courses for learners.
Who is the CEO of Articulate?
Lucy Suros is the CEO of Articulate.
Who are the main competitors of Articulate?
Below given are some main competitors of Articulate:
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Notebook Company.
Internet is steadily revolutionizing the Indian education system. Gone are the days when students used to pass hours in the library searching for that one reference book. Now every topic and every subject is available online. Furthermore, with more and more Edtech companies coming up, both the teaching and learning process has become easier.
Many startups have come up in India with innovative ideas in the Edtech sector. Notebook is one such Edtech Startup based in Kolkata. Notebook company’s vision is to enable access to high-quality education for every child. It strives to establish a benchmark in educational content quality for the Indian school curriculum.
Beyond its commercial presence, Notebook exists to empower positive social change. Its vernacular feature allows children to learn their syllabus in their regional languages. The videos include instructor-led components as well as graphic visualization elements to reinforce storytelling. Hand-drawn illustrations, soothing music, and well-thought-out creative design augment the Storytelling and enhance understanding and retention of topics.
Notebook company is also engaged in dialogue with the Education departments of various countries, to digitize education in these countries. There are on-going discussions with the governments in South Asia and GCC regions, and some other countries where the government is trying to serve different issues in their traditional education system through the distribution of digital content.
Products
The product is a self-learning environment. In its current shape and form, it provides videos and textual content that explain topics from school syllabi. Notebook has started with CBSE and will be adding more boards soon. It is available on the web, Android app, and iOS app.
Through its products Notebook company aims to bring out the curiosity among students and engage them. As in class holding the students’ attention for a long time is a challenge for the teachers, Notebook has attempted to create the audio-visuals in such a way that seems interesting to the students. Currently the course available in Notebook is English for CBSE 8th, 9th and 10th standard. Study Notes and Solved Questions are also included in the course.
The platform also employs Machine Learning to offer personalized learning pathways to the students. The back end will keep learning through usage patterns and use them in the future to recommend content to students based on individual learning needs.
Technology Used
Notebook operates on the Google Cloud and delivers video streams through the same pathway as YouTube. It has implemented best-in-class DRM to protect against piracy.
Notebook – Industry Details
According to a report by Google and KPMG, the online education industry in India will grow from $247Million to $1.96 billion by 2021, There are 260 million school students in India as per U-DISE reports. This provides a massive opportunity to deliver a high-quality product.
According to Cisco, just as with the advent of mobile phone connectivity has seen exponential growth from 3% to almost 100%, likewise, the smartphone will increase the computer penetration from 12-13% to 60-70%. As such, with Smartphone now being affordable and available to everyone, online education is no longer dependent on the computer.
Notebook – Founders and Team
Achin Bhattacharyya, Subhayu Roy and Abhishek Dutta are the co-founders of Notebook.
Achin Bhattacharyya
Achin Bhattacharyya – Co-founder of Notebook
Achin Bhattacharyya worked as a Chartered Accountant prior to the inception of Notebook. He worked with some of the best consultancy firms in India and abroad. His last stint was with Deloitte as a Director, prior to which he worked with KPMG, PwC, GE, and others, both in India and overseas. Achin takes care of overall strategy, content design, and finance at Notebook. Achin Bhattacharyya is the Co-founder and CEO of the company. An avid reader and passionate traveller himself, Achin has a keen interest in Economics, History, and Literature and Philosophy. He is a regular speaker at various forums and also contributes articles to numerous publications. He is also on the board of some of the most renowned corporates and contributes significantly to brand strategies.
Subhayu Roy
Subhayu Roy – Co-founder of Notebook
Subhayu did his Engineering from RVCE, Bangalore, and his MBA from TAPMI, Manipal. He had worked with L&T in Construction, and then with OnMobile in Africa for 4 years setting up a mobile content business. He headed Perform Group (UK)’s South Asia business before leaving and starting up Notebook. He also worked previously with VerSe Innovation, the parent company of Josh and Dailyhunt. Subhayu looks after Marketing of the edtech startup, Technology, and Product at Notebook.
Abhishek Dutta
Abhishek Dutta – Co-founder of Notebook
Abhishek is a qualified Chartered Accountant with 16 years of working experience in the corporate world. He has led large teams (400+) for delivering finance and accounting services to Fortune 500 companies.
The Co-Founders – Subhayu and Abhishek, bring valuable additions in terms of expertise and experience to Notebook.
The leadership at Notebook company believes that universal access to high-quality education is the only sustainable way to achieve social upliftment. To this end, Notebook has been proactively partnering with Government departments and Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) across the globe. Currently, there are 50+ members of the startup team.
Notebook founder
Notebook – Startup Story
It was over the course of a discussion that we realized that an ‘Over The Top (OTT)’ approach in education was possible.
In March 2017, Achin was visiting Subhayu in Delhi. They were having a general discussion on the various social evils present in society and how these evils can be eradicated through education. Subhayu was working in the Sports content space and was witnessing the OTT phenomenon. Soon the idea stuck in their mind that they can make education easily available through the OTT approach.
After this, Subhayu and Achin spent a year traveling across India and abroad – visiting students, teachers, universities, academicians across various places and different strata of the society to identify the pain points.
In March 2018, they started developing content, which they kept sharing with teachers and students at every step for feedback. They gave leaflets to schools, actively courting criticism!
Both Subhayu and I have spent years in the Corporate world. Managing time effectively is second nature to us. We spend time and effort in finding the right people. Once we do, we empower them, trust them and watch as they take the lead on things. – Achin Bhattacharyya, CEO of Notebook
When we started out, we had a few names on the board to choose from. Given that we needed to be attractive to school students, we were thinking of names that were fun, tech-oriented, used intelligent wordplay. – Achin Bhattacharyya, CEO of Notebook
Finally, Achin and Shubhayu came up with the name ‘Notebook’. It was simple, direct and known. Even in logo and colours, the company kept things the same way – simple and direct. The choice of the Golden yellow colour stood for excellence and it is also believed to be Goddess Saraswati’s colour.
Notebook- logo
Notebook – Business and Revenue Model
Notebook is a subscription-based service operating on a Freemium model. It is India’s first after-school digital learning portal. Schools get access to concise and engaging high-quality audio-visual teaching aids for classrooms, and students get individual personalised access to the same content on their personal devices so that they can study at their convenience. Since its commercial launch in September 2019, the Notebook app has been downloaded and used by more than 90,000 students from across India, and several schools have already started implementing Notebook videos in their classrooms.
According to Achin and Suvayu, Notebook’s USP is the content and pricing strategy. The content design has been consciously done in a way that engages the student.
We have devised an augmented storytelling technique that invites the student to imagine along with the video, and this shows great results in understanding and retention. – Achin Bhattacharyya, CEO of Notebook
Notebook is available at a price of Rs 1,999 for all subjects for a month and Rs 9,999 for an annual subscription with unlimited access.
Achin and Suvayu felt the necessity for the product to be made affordable to the average Indian parent, and this is what they have modeled into Notebook’s subscription.
Notebook – Funding
Notebook is currently bootstrapped startup. It has not received any funding yet.
Notebook – Growth
Notebook has served over 2.3 million users as of November 2021. It had over 300,000 users before the lockdown and increased to 2.32 million in 2021.
Notebook – Challenges
The greatest challenge faced was establishing a balance between content and pedagogy. The content had to be comprehensive and yet crisp. The pedagogy had to be engaging without distracting. So there were quite a few balances to strike.
Creating high-quality content ensuring that the students find it engaging and also which is easily memorable was a challenging task. However, Achin and Subhayu actively discussed the issues, expectations, and requirements with the teachers and students across the country. On the basis of the feedback received, Notebook was able to come up with an easily comprehensible and memorable design for the content.
Support from family and friends is the highest asset during challenging times.
Both of us have been fortunate that our family and friends have believed in us right from the get-go. Every person we told about our decision felt that we were doing the right thing. It has been immensely encouraging to have so many people put their faith in us. – – Achin Bhattacharyya, CEO of Notebook
Notebook – Competitors
There are quite a few companies that are registered as Ed-tech with the ROC. However, very few are known and regularly used by students. Byju’s has done an outstanding job in Maths and Science, and in building a self-learning habit. Others like Meritnation and Toppr have been around for a while, and have their own content philosophies. They believe that the true competition is with rated content, pirated videos, and other distractions that students today has access to.
Notebook is growing under the active mentorship of –
Mr. Ashok Ganguly – Former Chairman, CBSE for 8 years.
Dr. Mrs. Minakhi Das – Former Chief Controller of Exams, Odisha Board
Notebook – Work Culture
I believe that the best way to treat any employee is to not treat him or her as an employee. – Achin Bhattacharyya, CEO of Notebook
The Notebook team is like a close-knit family where the team members continuously help and support each other. Notebook has provided accommodation facility to its team members who are from outside Kolkata. This is a caring gesture and it has helped to improve the work efficiency of the team members.
Notebook – Awards
Notebook bagged the awards for the Best Website and the Best App at the World Digital Marketing Congress – two awards in 2020 at The Taj Lands’ End, Mumbai.
On winning the awards, Achin Bhattacharyya, CEO, and Founder of Notebook said, “From its very inception, Notebook has been driven by a vision to help students learn. The content design, product development, research, and technology have all stemmed from this core value. It is immensely encouraging for the whole team, and me personally, to be recognised by such an eminent forum for our efforts. India has seen a mushrooming of Edtech products in recent times, and many of them believe in aggressive overselling. We, however, have always believed in the quality of our content and the intuitive nature of our product and this has been such a wonderful validation of that approach. Our App and Website are both embodiments of the essential values that Notebook embodies – respect for every individual, inclusion in all our actions and immense pride in the work we do. I am humbled by this recognition, and attribute it to two things – our ability to precisely and accurately assess the students’ learning needs, and the tireless effort from our entire team. Accolades like this provide us with greater impetus to work harder.”
Notebook – Future Plans
It is just the beginning for Notebook company, and Achin and Subhayu are planning to make things big. Notebook’s future plans include-
Creating content in 10 vernacular languages apart from English.
To provide educational aids for dyslexic and visually challenged students.
To bridge the gap in the school education system in different subjects and different boards.
FAQs
What is Notebook?
Notebook is a digital learning platform that combines video and text content to deliver learning materials according to Board curricula.
Who is the founder of Notebook startup?
Achin Bhattacharyya, Subhayu Roy, and Abhishek Dutta are the co-founders of Notebook.
When was Notebook founded?
Notebook, the Kolkata-based startup was founded in 2018.
Who is the CEO of Notebook?
Achin Bhattacharyya is the Co-founder and CEO of Notebook company.
Technology has been a blessing in such a way, that now one can learn new things by just staying confined in their rooms. One can get educated, learn new courses, work skills with the help of the internet. Online learning is everywhere now. You can find a course for almost every skill online. It has spread the reach of knowledge as anyone can learn from anywhere. This sounds like a business opportunity, isn’t it?
According to reports, the market value of online learning as of 2020 is over $200 billion and it will only keep increasing. Online learning or Elearning has a vast reach and can bring you, customers from different age groups and from any part of the world. You can not only earn from selling your courses online but there are many other benefits for it too. In this article, we will talk about what are online courses and how one can launch them.
As you have already guessed by the name, it is the courses you can take on your phone, tablet, laptop, desktop or even on your smart TV with the help of the internet. For some people, online courses are much better than traditional classes, as there is no distraction from other people. Although is not always true for some people, as they have always learned in schools or colleges and have a habit of learning with other people in a traditional way. So, this might be a disadvantage of an online course that it doesn’t attract all kinds of people.
Importance of Online Courses
Flexibility: Online courses can be taken from anywhere. So, people who travel a lot, don’t have to miss their classes. Therefore, as a business owner (online course provider), you don’t have to worry about your customers.
Payment: You don’t have to worry about getting paid for your online course as people will have to pay before starting their online course. So, unlike traditional courses, you don’t have to ask people to pay their fees.
PotentialCustomers: If you provide free courses on your website, then you can identify your potential customers. Only those people will take your online course who are really interested and if they learn something from you for free, they are most likely to buy that product of yours.
LowerCost: Both for the course provider and the students, the cost is going to be minimum. As a course provider, you don’t have to invest in a place for the classes, other resources, and teachers. As for a student, you don’t have to spend time and money commuting to the location where you have to take classes.
InternalTraining: You can give online training to your own employees. It will save time and will be effective for your new employee, who can while doing their job.
Opportunity to Build Network: Nowadays most of the online courses create a common group (mostly on Facebook) to clear the doubts of the students and run interactive sessions. Thus you may build a network with the community members by joining such groups. You may discover new opportunities from those groups as well.
There are so many advantages of taking and giving online courses. These were some of them.
Pros & Cons of Selling Online Courses
How to Create an Online Course
Topic: First and most important step before creating an online course is to decide the perfect topic which will be best for your students. If you are going to give a free course, then chose something related to your own product. For example, if your company deals with the raw material of clothes, then you can provide a course on designing clothes.
Do a Market Research: After finalizing the topic, you should do complete market research on your upcoming course. If there is high demand for this course or if people are asking too many questions about it. Check the competition and what are the shortcomings of your competitors. Try to fix those loopholes and make your course unique.
Outlines: Just like we did while writing eBooks, you have to outline the whole course. Write about what you want your students to learn. First, write all the things you can think of, then, shortlist the content and remove the unnecessary content which doesn’t directly affect the skill.
Structure Modules: Structure the modules of the classes. Plan how much will they learn in how many days will it take. Don’t include too much content for any of the classes.
Edit the material:Edit your content, which could be anything, videos, written formats, audio, anything. If you think you are not good at editing, then hire someone who can, as it is a crucial part of your online course.
Test: Test your classes on someone, by trying to teach someone. Focus on the number of days they will take to learn from your course. Also, if possible, then take a test of their learning. It will help you to know how much your students are learning and what is their progress.
Pricing Model: Create the pricing model for your online course. Try to predict the number of students you will get. Then make sure that you cover all your expenses with that pricing.
Choose The Platform: Chose the platform you want to release your online course on. You can go for an online course marketplace or you can opt for some learning management systems, another option is that you can release the course on your own website. It will be the best option if you are going to provide the course for free.
Launch: Now, when you have the material, you have checked everything and chosen the platform, then what are you waiting for? It is the best time to launch your course online. Even If you are short in your budget then find out inexpensive ways to launch your course.
Conclusion
You can provide online courses for your new tool or just general knowledge of some techniques or you can spread your reach by providing free courses. Online courses can be an amazing opportunity for passive income. Just create some online courses and you will keep earning when people keep learning from your course. You can then update your course anytime you want.
The only thing to keep in mind is that the topic should be useful to people. Moreover, you should have good knowledge of that topic so that you can influence people to buy your course. Make sure that you make the course easy to understand and interesting to learn. If you are not familiar with creating online courses, then hire someone who is. It would be a good investment for your passive income.
FAQs
What online courses sell the most?
Computer and Technology
Art and Crafts
Business and Management
Physical wellbeing
Education
Is it worth taking free online courses?
Free online courses can better your skill or can help you learn new things by sitting in front of your computer.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Udemy,India.
With everything around the globe turning more and more into the online or internet-based platform, Udemy is an online learning platform that provides to its customers courses’ videos on a good vary of topics like coding, videos and photos editing, personal and professional development, software tutorials, programming courses, and the list goes on and on…
Recently, Britannia Tiger Krunch has partnered with Udemy for promoting self defense among kids. They have launched defense classes for kids at a special discounted rate.
India is one of the company’s fastest growing market, with revenue and students doubling year-over-year. A local presence will enable Udemy to continue enhancing and localizing the student and instructor experience.
“Udemy’s rapid growth in India shows us the level of demand from students, instructors, and companies for affordable skills training. We are dedicated to our mission of improving lives through learning and expanding in India enables us to deliver on that promise,” said Gregg Coccari, CEO of Udemy.
Udemy offers a powerful platform for self-placed, non-degree learning regarding hard and soft skills to its customers. When you explore the content broadly, there are 13 categories: development, business, finance and accounting, IT and software, office productivity, personal development, design, marketing, lifestyle, photography, health and fitness, music, and teaching and academics. Each category is further divided into subcategories.
It has a wide range of content and is excellent resources for instructors as well as it provides them with the platform to come forward and sell their designed courses to the people needing the same. Several courses are taught by subject matter experts in languages other than English, including Spanish, French, Japanese, Portuguese, and German.
Talking about the best course in Udemy being sold to the customers, a generic question arises, where do the courses come from? To which let me enlighten, Udemy invites instructors and teachers who want to design courses and sell them on the platform. So, Udemy not just benefits the students by providing them with the in-demand best courses at their screens by few taps, but also provides a platform to the teachers to sell them to the students.
One needs a Udemy account for most activities on its platform including purchasing, enrolling in a course or to submit a course for publication.
The platform has more than 35 million students and 57,000 instructors teaching over 65 languages. There have been over 400 million enrollments. Students and instructors come from 180+ countries and 66% of the students are located outside of the U.S.
The Udemy logo is made up of two elements – a symbol and a wordmark. The symbol is handwritten and organic, to emphasize the personal connections being made between our students and instructors. The wordmark, set in practical sans serif type, is the structure and substance that makes their connections possible.
Udemy – How It Works?
Udemy works on 4 major lines and aims to provide the following to its students:
Convenience :
Udemy provides its students with the freedom to choose what and when to study. If a particular course is made available on the e-learning platform, students can enroll for it whenever they want because Udemy gives lifetime access it. Moreover, there’s no set time limit, so the students get to learn at their own suitable pace.
Variety :
Udemy has linked tutors from all around the world who teach a huge variety of subjects from business to the arts. It allows the students to learn whatever they want.
Affordability :
Some Udemy courses are free, and some are paid start from as little as $9. There are also a variety of udemy coupons and seasonal sale and discounts which help students to register themselves in courses at dirt rates. They also have an option to choose their preferred method of payment.
Certification :
Udemy certification courses adds credibility to your career. Udemy provides various certification courses to add up new skills, upgrade your skill, and enhance your expertise. It issues a certificate of achievement to students, a mark of completion of a particular course. Certificates can be saved as a .pdf or .jpg file so that you can easily share your accomplishment. In addition, certificates can be shared on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIndirectly from Udemy. The certificate of completion looks like this-
Udemy certificate
Udemy – Founders
Udemy was launched by Eren Bali, Oktay Caglar and Gagan Biyani in early 2010.
Eren Bali, Oktay Caglar and Gagan Biyani, Udemy Co-Founders
In 2007, Udemy founder Eren Bali built a software for a live virtual classroom while living in Turkey. He saw potential in making the product free for everyone, and moved to Silicon Valley to find a company two years later.
“Udemy differentiates in two major ways. First, students can learn on their own time. Many other services provide the ability to host live learning with teachers, but it is critical for students to learn via recorded content (videos and written articles) as well. Second, it develops a community around the course. We provide features so students can easily interact amongst each other and their instructor,” said -Gagan Biyani, (Indian-American) Co-Founder of Udemy
With a mission to improve lives through learning, it is the largest online learning destination that helps students, businesses, and governments gain the skills they need to compete in today’s economy. They enable anyone anywhere to create and share educational courses(instructors) and to enroll in these educational courses to learn(students). More than 35 million students are mastering new skills from expert instructors teaching over 130,000 online courses in topics from programming and data science to leadership and team building.
For companies, Udemy for Business offers an employee training and development platform with subscription access to 7,000+ courses, learning analytics, as well as the ability to host and distribute their own content.
Udemy for Government is designed to upskill workers and prepare them for the jobs of tomorrow. It is privately owned and headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Denver, Brazil, India, Ireland, and Turkey.
Udemy – Business Model
Udemybusiness model maintains a vigorous platform between instructors and students. Instructor create online courses as per their expertise and these are bought by students. It charges instructors a fee for every course sale made on its platform. The fee depends on how the user was acquired. It ranges from 3 to 75%. Additionally, it charges students annual subscription that gives its businesses (and their employees) access to the platform’s content.
Udemy – Revenue Model
Instructor Fees
There is no fee to create or host courses in Udemy. The firm makes money whenever a student purchases a course.
Consequently, revenue is shared with instructors. Depending on how the student was acquired, a different instructor fee applies.
This edtech Company has three revenue share tiers that it applies to its instructors:
Instructor Promotion: The student discovers the course through a coupon or referral link issued by the instructor. In this case, the instructor receives 97 percent of the revenue. An additional administration fee of 3 percent is applied by Udemy.
Udemy Organic: Organic sales occur whenever a student browses the e-learning platform and finds a course he/she is interested in. Furthermore, no instructor coupon is used when purchasing the course. In this scenario, Udemy and the instructor share 50 percent of the sales. Udemy charges a 30 percent fee for any sale made through the company’s Android or iOS app.
Paid Acquisition: In some instances, Udemy buys advertising slots on other platforms like Google, Facebook, or YouTube. Whenever students buy courses through paid marketing channels, Udemy takes a 75 percent cut of each course sale. Instructors can limit the amount of times and types of channels in which their courses are promoted.
For Business
Udemy For Business, as the name indicates, is tailored towards companies and their employees. Udemy for Business host courses including development, design, IT and software, data science, office productivity, management, marketing, personal development, project management, sales, among others.
Leading companies in India, including Wipro, Tech Mahindra, and Tetrasoft are using Udemy for Business so their employees can learn the latest skills and deliver the most innovative solutions for their customers. “We use Udemy for Business because we want to provide a learning platform for our employees across the globe where they can learn anytime, anywhere. With short bite-sized lectures and some of the best professors globally, our employees like learning on the platform because it’s easy to pick up new skills,” says Anurag Seth, VP & Head of Talent Transformation at Wipro, a leading global information technology, consulting, and business process services company.
It offers two subscription plans, depending on the size of the team. The teamplan is aimed at learning groups of 5 to 20 users. The company will have to pay $360 per year and user. Consequently, the Enterprise plan is suitable for all teams above 21 or more users. Hereby, pricing is available upon request by contacting it’s sales team. Furthermore, the Enterprise plan offers a few additional features. These include custom categories and learning paths, no language limitation (the Team plan is limited to English only), custom user groups, tracking user activity, Slack integration, and many more.
Udemy – Prices
With so many perks attached to its name, this is another generic question. There are both paid and free courses on Udemy. But to describe it in layman terms, nothing worth comes for free. So, yes the free courses aren’t as up to the mark as the paid ones. One needs to pay for Udemy courses one by one or can get access to more than 4,000 any time with a Business subscription. Unfortunately, the price is a little high, and you need a minimum of five people for a Business account. Some popular online learning platforms feature a membership system, but Udemy is a pay-per-course service. Udemy Courses ranges from $9 to $300, and the company frequently hosts sales.
It accepts international debit and credit cards, e-payments and bank transfers. The company offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Udemy – Courses
The expert turn of events and programming courses are strikingly like the ones you can discover on LinkedIn Learning with proficient teachers. From the student’s viewpoint, you’re generally watching a talking head and incidentally perusing list items or synopses that show up on the screen.
You can discover the frail substance and self-serving educators if you burrow. One can even let the instructor know the doubts while studying the course which the instructor/teacher answers accordingly. The doubts and questions of other users which have been already answered by the instructor also appear to the student which helps in solving their doubt at earliest.
Every learner or student has to have a Udemy account to enroll or purchase a course. As the student purchases a course, it gets saved under ‘my learning’. The student can study them accordingly. The progress made while studying them is also displayed to the user including the number of sections completed. Just like any other shopping website, here we can wishlist a course if we’re not prepared to buy the same at that very moment.
When you discover a course, you can examine an in-depth description of that course, requirements to start it, what to expect at the end of the course, whether or not the course includes a certificate on completion and so forth.
The flesh and bone of each course are videos. Videos generally are grouped into sections. So, a course might be 3 hours long, however, each video might not be greater than 10 minutes. This is how a course is divided into sections.
The format enables teachers to ensure their courses are genuinely structured. By having sections and brief videos, instructors have to break their content material into specific, digestible pieces. this setup facilitates students to see the overall scope of the course beforehand. It additionally makes it smooth for students to pause and take a break from their course once they want to. Having brief videos additionally, lets newbies effortlessly repeat something they failed to apprehend or need to refresh. And it is beneficial in case you have a few revels in with the subject count already because you could skip any videos that include what you already know. Students can even rate the courses accordingly.
Udemy – For Instructors
Anybody proficient and confident in a field can turn into a teacher on Udemy. In beginning as an educator, Udemy offers tools and understanding to assist you with making a decent course. There is no fee to be an instructor on Udemy. Instructors are paid according to a revenue share model of the company. When a student buys a course on the marketplace, revenue is shared between instructor and the company, according to revenue share model. It offers tips, outlines and information concerning what sorts of courses students are searching for. The site likewise reveals to you whether the quantity of courses presently offered is per the interest, in addition to the normal and top-procuring month to month wages in this subject zone. Courses must have at least 30 minutes of video content and at least 5 lectures or learning modules.
In order to ensure that students have great learning experiences, Udemy also have a Quality Review Process that every course goes through.
In order to create paid courses, you’ll need an active PayPal or Payoneer account. Instructors can connect a PayPal or Payoneer account to their Udemy account. They are paid on a monthly basis.
In addition to the Udemy’s standard lecture uploader, they offer the ability to upload materials in bulk or import them via Google Drive, Box, Dropbox, and other file storage tools.
Udemy’s Marketplace Insights they offer robust reporting on student demand, search volume, and revenue for a particular topic to help you decide what to teach. If no data exists for a topic the want-to-be-instructor-person is searching, it likely means that there’s an opportunity to fill this gap in the Udemy marketplace and he/she should get started right away. While success as an instructor on the e-learning platform is not guaranteed, this tool offers some powerful data to help you make your decision.
As an instructor, you have the option to enroll in the Udemy Deals Program, which is made up of two marketing channels that spotlight your course(s) in different ways. Enrolling in the Udemy Deals Program gives company the option to promote your course, at a discount. Selection for promotion is not guaranteed. In addition, they provide instructors with extensive articles, resources and features at online platform to help you effectively market your course(s).
Udemy – Expansion in India
For Udemy, after the US, India is the second largest market catering to the requirement of professionals wanting to learn new skills or upgrade their skills.
“It has started talks with both the Center and various State governments for using its platform to train their staff,” said Irwin Anand, Managing Director, Udemy India.
Udemy MD, India- Irwin Anand
“With over 20 million employees, the Government is one of the biggest sectors to be tapped. Udemy works with the Governments of Japan and Singapore.In India, we have millions of students as customers and thousands of instructors teaching students from around the world. Every year, nearly 7 million graduates pass out of colleges, but not many are employable. The traditional way of education in India is not sufficient for people to be productive at work. Udemy with its practice-oriented courses help people to learn the right skills and get into the job market,” Anand said.
Udemy – Funding and Investors
Udemy has raised a total of $223M in funding over 9 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Feb 19, 2020 from a Series E round.
Date
Stage
Amount
Investor
Feb 19, 2020
Series E
$50M
Benesse
Aug 1, 2019
Secondary Market
–
Manhattan Venture Partners
Jun 2, 2016
Series D
$60M
Prosus and Naspers
Jun 2, 2015
Series D
$65M
Stripes
May 8, 2014
Series C
$32M
Norwest Venture Partners
Dec 7, 2012
Series B
$12M
Insight Partners
Oct 12, 2011
Series A
$3M
Lightbank
Aug 1, 2011
Seed Round
–
–
Aug 31, 2010
Seed Round
$1M
–
Winter Capital Joins Series F Funding Round in 4th Quarter of 2020 to expand its edtech portfolio. The capital raised will enable Udemy to continue growing its consumer and business product offerings to serve the world’s students, organizations, and instructors.
Udemy – Revenue
Udemy’s estimated annual revenue is currently $653.9M. It’s estimated revenue per employee is $165,000. Like any startup in growth mode, it does not share any revenue metrics with the public. Due to ongoing expansions into new markets as well as spending on product development and new hires, it can be assumed that the company remains unprofitable for now.
The cost of online learning is all over the map. Some companies charge a membership fee while others sell access to specific classes only. As mentioned, Teachable lets instructors sell courses at prices they set, rather than offer a membership. The Great Courses is similar. Every course is priced individually.
Top competitors of Udemy are Coursera and Khan Academy. Other competitors include Linkedin learning, Udacity, Skillshare and Master Class.
Udemy – Awards
Udemy has won awards at major competitions such as VatorSplash and the ASU Education Innovation Summit. Also, blogs such as TechCrunch, Mashable, ReadWriteWeb.
Udemy – Future Plans
Udemy is an interesting and evolving concept that focuses on the transfer of knowledge, rather than fetching a diploma. The wide variety of content and instructors available at affordable rates and the exceptionally personal pace of learning make it a very convenient method of attaining skills. With the world becoming more advanced and technophile, their businesses have huge horizons unlocked for themselves. For the time, it remains non-profitable.
Udemy – FAQs
Who are the founders of Udemy?
Udemy was founded by Eren Bali, Gagan Biyani, and Oktay Caglar.
What is Udemy?
Udemy is an online-based learning platform that provides its customers numerous courses on a variety of topics like development, business, finance and accounting, IT and software, office productivity, personal development, design, marketing, lifestyle, photography, health and fitness, music, teaching, and academics.
Is Udemy accredited?
Udemy is not an accredited institution. Each completed Udemy course includes a certificate, but the certificate can’t be used to seek formal accreditation.
How long are Udemy courses?
Every course has a specific duration associated with it. Once the course is purchased, the consumer has lifetime access to their selected courses.
What Platform is Udemy built on?
Python is the base language on which the Udemy platform is built on. For Database, Udemy uses MySQL.
Is Udemy cheap?
Udemy courses are priced based on the market, though the company does host sales(Udemy sale), and sometimes an instructor offers discounts to increase sale volume.
Is Udemy recognised?
Certificates of completion help demonstrate your accomplishments, but please note Udemy is not an accredited institution, and as a result, the certificates cannot be used for formal accreditation.
Is Udemy an Indian comapany?
No, Udemy is an American company, privately owned and headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Denver, Brazil, India, Ireland, and Turkey.
The online education is getting a great response. Since, all the schools and colleges are temporarily closed due to the global lockdown, there is a significant rise in the demand of online courses and platforms. Even the schools and colleges are also trying to shift their classes on their online platform in order to continue the process of learning and not to hamper the studies of the students. Let us see the whole case study of rise of e-learning sector during COVID-19.
Statistics of different countries on the status of e-learning
In India, any online learning platforms are offering free access to their services which includes platforms like BYJU’S, which is now the world’s most highly valued Edtech Company and India’s unicorn platform providing services in the e-learning category. While giving the interview, the COO of the company shared the information that; From the day of announcing the free live classes on its Think and Learn app, BYJU’s has seen a 200% increase in the number of new students using its product which lead to rise of e-learning business in the e-learning sector.
In China, after looking to the pandemic, the Chinese govt. gave the instruction for the full-time students to resume their studies through online platforms. So, taking the initiative, the Tencent classroom started working in this field. As a result, China is able to see the largest “online movement” in the history of education with approximately and so, about 730000 or 81% of students, attending classes via the Tencent K-12 Online School in Wuhan.
All this gives a great information about the rise in the e-learning solution in the situation of global pandemic. This rise in the e-learning will also help in the upcoming post pandemic where schools and colleges will able to shift themselves on the online platform so that, they should not get any problem if such situation comes in the upcoming future time period.
The online education or the e-learning system has now become a new point for debate. There are two groups in the society having a different opinion for the online education. They are:-
Opinion 1) The first set of group believes that the unplanned and rapid move to online learning – with no training, and little preparation – will result in a poor user experience and will lead to the poor growth in their respective field.
Opinion 2) The second set of group believe that a new hybrid model of education will emerge as a best source of gaining the knowledge in their respective field. This is because of the fact that today, we are leading to an era of digital world. So, this initiative will be giving a significant benefits in the future itself.
There is always a demerit of every merit source and this online education also has its own challenges which is to overcome. In this case, the upcoming challenge is the internet. Some students without good connection of internet access and without the good internet connection, the technology struggles to work perfectly with digital learning. Example for this case is:-
According to a survey 95% of students in Switzerland, Norway, and Austria have a computer which can be used for their school or college work but on the other hand only 34% of students in Indonesia have an access of computer for their work.
According to a survey students retain 25-60% more material when learning online as compared to classroom study which helps them in retaining about 8-10% only. This can have many reasons like students can learn at their own pace or reading 2-3 times repetitively by going back and re-reading or choosing their own topics which they like to read or study. These reasons are the main reason behind the faster learning of the students. A fact tells that e-learning requires 40-60% less time to learn than in a traditional classroom setting.
Anik Banerjee
