In addition to revolutionising the Ed-Tech sector, Unacademy offers educators and enthusiastic learners an online platform. In India, Unacademy is one of the biggest learning platforms. The success of Unacademy, which achieves remarkable heights in the Ed Tech sector, inspires them to perform better for its students. At the moment, it provides free education to Indian students from the top instructors in the country.
Unacademy was founded by Gaurav Munjal, Hemesh Singh, and Roman Saini. Their goal was to create a technology that would enable more individuals to receive high-quality education. Gaurav Munjal was a computer science student once.
In order to provide training lessons, he created Unacademy on YouTube in 2010. Hemesh Singh was very interested in technology, and Roman Saini, a former doctor, is now a teacher.
They later worked with Munjal to transform the channel into a complete edtech platform. Their expertise and passion for teaching have been crucial to Unacademy’s development. Professionals and students can learn online using Unacademy. It offers a large selection of courses and learning resources. It can be used to participate in interactive lectures and live sessions. It provides educational resources on a wide range of subjects as well as numerous competitive tests. Promoting broad access to education helps Unacademy achieve its mission of bolstering democracy.
Unacademy has expanded quickly since its founding. The site has seen exponential growth in its user base. It is enrolling millions of individuals in its classes. Its numerous courses, the interesting methods it aids in learning, and the presence of renowned instructors are the reasons for this expansion.
Unacademy operates on a freemium basis. To put it simply, Unacademy charges a subscription fee for its premium material while providing some of its fundamental services for free. While the live, interactive events with leading experts are paid, the pre-recorded classes are free.
While the basic content is free, Unacademy offers additional premium features and benefits through subscription plans.
Earning through a subscription model
To access its premium features, which include access to the most recent and updated Exclusive Content, live doubt-clearing sessions, mock exams, and individualised advice, students can choose to pay for memberships.
Earning through Exam Preparation and Test Series
For a variety of competitive exams, including UPSC, SSC, Banking, Railways, and others, Unacademy provides specialised courses and test series. The targeted preparation that these exam-specific courses offer is often available at an additional cost to students who are aspiring to take these exams.
Earning through Corporate Partnerships
Unacademy collaborates with schools, universities, and other educational establishments to offer online certification programmes and courses. These partnerships increase the legitimacy of Unacademy’s courses and broaden their audience reach.
Earning through Placements
This is Unacademy’s most recent feature. “Relevel” is the name of Unacademy’s placement platform. It is specifically made to link employers and job seekers. In other words, students can find their desired employment within 15 days after applying. Additionally, they will have access to courses tailored to their ideal career! Relevel claims to have over 2.35 lakh users and a 100% placement rate. To provide this service, the business charges a price.
USP of Unacademy
During FY22, Unacademy made INR 844 crore. This mammoth revenue is generated primarily through the selling of services, educational materials, and other kinds of income.
The core of Unacademy’s business strategy is a combination of advertising, live classes, subscription options, and instructional resources. Its revenue streams are further diversified by its strategic alliances and the introduction of platforms like Relevel and Graphy. Despite beginning as a free learning platform, Unacademy has effectively made money off of its services to establish itself as a significant force in the edtech industry, especially in the cutthroat exam preparation sector.
FAQ
How does Unacademy make money?
Unacademy makes money through subscription fees, live classes, advertisements, and partnerships with educational institutions.
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 Skillshare.
To live in this era of a highly competitive world, one must be highly skilled as well. Gaining knowledge and having a hunger for developing your skills play a central role in modern civilization.
Today, with easy access to the internet and technology in our hands, online learning has become very convenient. In other words, ed-tech, or educational technology, is a major thing right now. The combination of software and educational theories with the help of the internet has given people a new way to consume knowledge in a much more uncomplicated manner.
Skillshare is an American online-based learning community whose website went live in 2011. It is one of the leading platforms for online education, with over 12 million registered members. The online learning platform is accessible to the majority of countries and offers a wide range of creative skills and courses.
Let’s dig into the details of Skillshare’s success story in this article, where you will learn about its business and revenue model, funding details, growth, and more.
Skillshare is a US-based online learning community platform for people who want to learn from educational videos. It offers thousands of courses that enhance a person’s creative journey. The majority of courses emphasize interaction rather than lecturing, with the primary goal of learning through project completion. Anyone can take or offer online classes on the Skillshare platform.
Skillshare is used by organizations like Staples, Mailchimp, Evernote, and Disney for the professional development of their employees in addition to the millions of individual learners on the platform.
Creative arts, design & illustration, video, entrepreneurship, lifestyle, and technology are some of the main course categories.
The global education segment is estimated to have a value of US$7.08 billion in 2022. It is projected that the segment will experience an annual growth rate of 6.95% from 2022 to 2027, resulting in a market volume of US$10.50 billion by 2027.
Skillshare – Founders and Team
SkillShare is founded by Michael Karnjanaprakorn and Malcolm Ong in New York in 2010.
Michael Karnjanaprakorn
Michael Karnjanaprakorn – Co-founder of Skillshare
Michael Karnjanaprakorn is an entrepreneur, investor, and creator. He has attended the University of Virginia. Along with Skillshare, Micheal also founded Otis in 2018, which is an investment platform. Otis was acquired by Public in 2022. Before establishing Skillshare, Micheal has been associated with companies like Behance (acquired by Adobe) and Hot Potato (acquired by Facebook). Micheal has angel invested in companies like Street FC, Notion, 88Rising, and Polkadot.
Malcolm Ong
Malcolm Ong – Co-founder of Skillshare
Malcolm Ong graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a B.S. in Computer Science, a double major in Business Administration, and a minor in E-commerce. He was a Senior VP of Product at South China Morning Post SCMP for four years. Malcolm has worked in various organizations like IBM, Lyft, Razorfish, 500 Global, and OMGPOP. Malcolm has also co-founded Sandstorm and was the CEO of the same in 2014 for one year.
Matt Cooper
Matt Cooper – CEO of Skillshare
Matt Cooper is an experienced entrepreneur and business executive who currently serves as the CEO of Skillshare. Prior to Skillshare, he held leadership positions at several companies, including Visually and Upwork. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics with a concentration in Mathematics from Vanderbilt University and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) with a double concentration in Finance and Accounting from Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management.
Skillshare – Startup Story
Skillshare’s journey began when its site went live in 2011, almost after a year after Michael Karnjanaprakorn and Malcolm Ong founded Skillshare in New York in November 2010. In August 2012, Skillshare launched 15 self-paced online courses in which students collaborated to complete a project. It hosted over 250 courses by November 2013 and launched its School of Design. Eventually, Skillshare partnered with Levi’s to launch the School of MakeOurMark, which focused on individual creativity through courses in photography, tattooing, and various forms of illustration.
Over 27,000 premium classes and more than 2,000 free classes were available on Skillshare during March 2019. With the platform’s new ‘Groups’ feature, users could collaborate with other creators, share their work, and advance their skills through stimulating conversations and challenges. However, Skillshare stopped offering classes for free in September 2021 and started mandating users to sign up for either a paid membership or a free trial to access all courses (including classes that were previously available for free).
The goal of Skillshare is to empower teachers and democratize learning. It wishes to create a society in which anyone can teach anything, supported by a never-ending cycle of sharing knowledge and interests. The platform wants to transform each neighborhood into a campus, each address into a classroom, and each resident into a learner and a teacher. Skillshare epitomizes the modern educational landscape because it is for doers rather than scholars or theorists.
Skillshare – Name, Tagline, and Logo
Skillshare Logo
The name “Skillshare” was inspired by the concept of a “skill share” where people come together to share their skills and knowledge. The name reflects the company’s mission to make education more accessible and engaging through a collaborative platform.
Skillshare is known for providing multiple courses that mainly focus on people’s creative side and evolve their skills. Thus, the tagline of Skillshare is “Inspiring discovery through creativity.”
Skillshare – Business and Revenue Model
Since skillshare is an online-based learning platform that allows anyone to either teach or learn in various creative fields, it operates on a marketplace business model. It also offers scholarships for college and university students. As mentioned earlier, Skillshare used to offer classes for free, but it stopped its free service and made it a paid-based platform in a manner similar to Netflix or Amazon Prime.
Monthly, yearly, and enterprise subscriptions account for the majority of its income. In addition, Skillshare receives commissions from the related products it displays to customers who subscribe for a year.
Skillshare can be said to have two sections through which it operates its business and makes money:
Subscription-fee
Through subscription fees, students get unrestricted access to thousands of courses in virtually every subject area. Additionally, students will be able to take part in group projects. Initially, the platform allows a free trial, after which users will have to pay certain fees. It is then available for a monthly membership fee of $32, and an annual Premium membership fee of $168 (roughly $14 per month).
These monthly and yearly subscriptions account for the majority of Skillshare’s income, with 30% of the revenue going to the teacher royalty pool, which rewards instructors for creating engaging courses based on factors such as the number of minutes watched and the number of new students enrolled.
Referral-fee
The other way Skillshare does business is through referrals. It makes money from referral fees for promoting other products in addition to subscription income.
Skillshare – Funding and Investors
Skillshare has raised total funding worth $136.8 million in over 11 rounds. Its funding details are as follows:
Date
Funding Round
Amount
Investors
Nov 2, 2020
Private Equity Round
–
–
Oct 5, 2020
Series D
–
–
Aug 10, 2020
Series D
$66 million
OMERS Growth Equity
Jan 1, 2019
Debt Financing
$20 million
–
Jul 23, 2018
Debt Financing
$8 million
–
Jul 23, 2018
Series C
$20 million
Union Square Ventures
May 26, 2016
Series B
$12 million
Amasia, Omidyar Network
Feb 28, 2014
Venture Round
$6.1 million
Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures
Jan 31, 2013
Venture Round
$1 million
VTF Capital
Aug 16, 2011
Series A
$3.1 million
Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures
Skillshare – Growth
To improve the quantity and quality of its lessons as well as to refocus on its strengths, Skillshare has continuously tweaked and updated both its chronicle and its platform. The business does define creativity broadly and includes lessons in all forms of art, including writing, design, animation, filmmaking, photography, and content creation.
Skillshare shifted the majority of its attention to creative lessons for its brand relaunch in 2020. The platform saw significant growth during mid-march 2020 as a result of social distancing and Covid-19 guidelines that made many people sit indoors.
The company claims that it is expanding and becoming popular outside the borders of the United States. It further adds that India is Skillshare’s fastest-growing market without any support from local teachers or location-based content.
Today, Skillshare has over 13 million registered members and more than 11,000 teachers, and 34,000+ classes.
Skillshare has mentioned that it plans to stay focused on English content in the coming future. Furthermore, the company is planning to accept payments in different currencies and support subtitles in various languages to promote global viewership.
Skillshare – FAQs
What is Skillshare?
Skillshare is a US-based online learning community for people who want to learn from educational videos. It offers thousands of courses that enhance a person’s creative journey.
Who is the founder of Skillshare?
Michael Karnjanaprakorn and Malcolm Ong are the founders of Skillshare.
Who is the CEO of Skillshare?
Matt Cooper is the CEO of Skillshare.
Who are the top competitors of Skillshare?
The top competitors of SkillShare include Udemy, Coursera, LinkedIn Learning, edX, Khan Academy, MasterClass, and CBT Nuggets.
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 Simpliv Learning.
The rise of digital usage has made everything available online like shopping, payment, an education. Yes, online education is a big thing now. Online education is an emerging field and its growth is seen after the pandemic crisis when lockdowns made everyone sit at home. It was seen that digital education was of utmost preference at that time.
Education is the basic right of every human being. Without education, one cannot significantly contribute to their family and society. This way, a lot of companies have embraced technologies to enable online learning platforms to become a reality. An online learning platform has huge potential. There are a lot of benefits that online learning provides to its students. There’s flexibility, a wider range of courses, a customised learning platform, and so on.
The American-based company, Simpliv Learning is an online learning and teaching platform that offers training on various topics and programmes, making them easily available to everyone. The company was founded in 2017 and has its headquarters in Fremont, California, USA.
Discover all about Simpliv Learning in this article. We have covered aspects like Simpliv Learning’s industry details, its founders, key business operations, revenue model, and much more.
Simpliv is a worldwide online learning marketplace that offers online training on a wide range of topics to help people alter their life. Its online platform is a dynamic web-based platform that has massive learning and teaching opportunity for students and institutions through its cost-effective courses. Their courses and programs are available to everyone who want to study, whether in management, technology, science, or any other field of interest.
Simpliv is accessible, affordable, and convenient with ever-evolving industry trends. The company has made its learning platform in a way that has developed learning packages that can deliver the necessary information in a reasonable amount of time and money. Simpliv recognises shifting demands and enables global learners to evaluate their technical abilities by linking learning to important business objectives and bridging skill shortages in many business domains such as IT, Marketing, Commerce, Business Development, and much more.
It also invites individuals to become mentors on its platform. In addition, Simpliv helps to sharpen a mentor’s teaching skills to expand their knowledge. These individuals can become a part of the community by sharing their area of interest and uploading a video of their sample lecture on its platform.
Simpliv Learning – Industry
No doubt, online education holds a great future as the reports suggest that the global EdTech and Smart Classrooms’ Market industry is expected to develop at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.2% from $125.3 billion in 2022 to $232.9 billion by 2027.
Simpliv Learning was founded by Shahanshah Manzoor in 2017.
Shahanshah Manzoor
Shahanshah Manzoor – Founder and Managing Director of Simpliv Learning
Shahanshah Manzoor was born in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India on July 12, 1981. Shahanshah is a graduate of Bachelor of Science from Mahatma Jyotiba Phule (MJP) Rohilkhand University. After that, he did a Master of Science in Maths from Aligarh Muslim University. He also holds a Master’s degree in Computer Application from Bangalore University. He has over 15 years of expertise in several businesses and has consistently advocated for equal access to education.
Along with the founder of Simpliv, Manzoor is also one of the founding members of Traininng.com LLC which offers world-class online professional training in the areas of regulatory compliance and healthcare. His entrepreneurial journey started with NetZealous, a provider of Innovative Professional Training in areas like IT, Healthcare, HR, and Regulatory Compliance, where he is currently serving as the CEO. Manzoor is also associated with S2M Trainings as its Chairman. He is also the co-founder of PlanUREvents, a training provider in compliance training for the industries like medical devices drugs & biologics/pharmaceuticals, clinical and laboratory, food, banking and financial services, aerospace and defence, trade & logistics, construction, automobile, energy, environmental and much more.
ShahanshahManzoor’s business triumphs and commitment to bringing worldwide education for learning have been reported by various high-tier news outlets, including the Deccan Chronicle, DNA India, LiveMint, Midday, Business World, and others.
Simpliv Learning – Name, Logo, and Tagline
Simpliv Learning Logo
The company in India is registered as “Simpliv Services India Pvt Ltd”. In the USA, the company is known as, “Simpliv LLC”
Simpliv Learning goes with the tagline, “Start Teaching and Learning in Simple Way.”
Simpliv Learning – Mission and Vision
The vision statement of Simpliv is, “To transform lives by providing the best learning and teaching experience to maximize the potential of the learners”.
Simpliv Learning aims to provide affordable education to every person around the globe. They desire to make professional online courses available, by fitting the students to respective expert instructors in the specified field. Just as how technology is ever-changing, Simpliv believes that partnering with curious learners, educators, and institutions, can help them thrive in the ever-changing competitive environment.
Presently, Simpliv’s business operations are based on two models – B2B and B2C.
Its B2B model involves offering training courses to corporates such as IT, Consultancy, Universities, and Colleges. Till now, the company has tied up with Accenture, Apple, Capgemini, NASA, Comcast, Dell, HP, Siemens, Equifax, and more. Furthermore, Simpliv’s business operations also offer courses to anyone interested in their learning platform. These courses are designed for the 18 to 25, 26 to 34, 35 to 45, and 46 to 60 age groups.
The revenue stream of Simpliv comes from its affiliate programs. These programs are designed to offer high-quality courses to their audience by top industry experts across the Globe. These courses are all trending ones in categories like Technology, Leadership, Personal Development, Productivity tools, Lifestyle, Music, Photography, and more.
Simpliv Learning – Growth
Simpliv Learning saw a 1000% growth in this year’s first quarter on its online learning platform as compared to the previous year. Due to this, the company’s revenue growth has also doubled in the last three months. There is also a 46% employee growth in Simpliv.
The company has made an estimated revenue of $14.2 million this year.
Simpliv Learning – Funding and Investors
As of now, the company has not raised any funds. It is completely bootstrapped.
Simpliv Learning – Challenges Faced
When Covid-19 hit the world, many startups were shut down. But, Simpliv saw an opportunity and found a way to overcome the difficulties. Simpliv was determined and sent out the message that this was an excellent time for learners to improve their abilities because they would be spending the majority of their time at home. The pricing structure offered by the company has always been its advantage and it made the most of it. Simpliv positioned itself as a brand that is less costly, yet viable. The company made itself an alternative to some of the market’s large brands, which offered expensive courses.
Simpliv Learning – Competitors
With many online education providers in the market today, Simpliv has many competitors. Some of the top competitors are:
Presently, Simpliv is available in more than 180 countries. Besides this, the company is further planning to expand to become a leader in the E-learning market. The company also intends to improve the learning and teaching experience to maximise students’ potential. With this objective in mind, Simpliv Learning is confident and sees itself in this business for a long time, which is expected to develop at an exponential rate for many years to come, pandemic or no pandemic.
FAQs
What is Simpliv Learning?
Simpliv Learning is an online learning marketplace that offers online courses on a wide range of topics like web development, IT and Software, Writing, Marketing, and more.
Who is the founder of Simpliv Learning?
Shahanshah Manzoor is the founder and Managing Director at Simpliv Learning.
Where are the headquarters of Simpliv Learning?
Simliv Learning is headquartered in Fremont, California, USA.
Himaya Presthitha
