Lightbank, an investment arm of Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell(Groupon founders) has led a $3 million initial funding round in Udemy, the startup announced today. Other investors include Dave McClure’s 500 Startups and MHS Capital. Udemy has already raised $1 million in angel funding.
Udemy’s goal is to disrupt and democratize the world of education by enabling anyone to teach and learn online. Udemy wants to make it easy for anyone to build an online course. Instructors can use video, PowerPoint, PDFs, audio, zip files and live classes to quickly build a course and share their expertise. Udemy offers 6,000 courses covering all sorts of hobby-related subjects.
Students can take courses across a great breadth of categories, including: business & entrepreneurship, academics, the arts, health & fitness, language, music, technology, games, and more. Most courses on Udemy are free, but some are paid. Paid courses typically range in price from $5 – $250.
The $3 million round follows $1 million in funding from MHS Capital, 500 Startups, and several other individual investors.