Udemy is a global online educational platform. Around the world, the company provides educational services to students, corporate clients and even government agencies in order to improve their skills and knowledge to achieve their goals. Global market leaders such as Adidas, Toyota, PayPal, Lyft, Pinterest and others are already using the Udemy platform to train employees or post their own exclusive content.
Udemy is an educational marketplace that hosts courses posted by other users. Now on the platform of the company there are already more than 150 thousand different training programs in more than 65 languages of the world. Udemy has over 30 million customers from over 192 countries around the world. Absolutely any expert in any scientific and expert field can post their course or webinar on the platform after passing the verification process.
Taking into account the fact that not a single product posted on the platform belongs to Udemy, and the prices for materials are set by the experts themselves, the main income of the company consists in commissions from the sale of courses through the official website and other resources. An additional source of income is advertising and promotion of course owners within the platform.
Udemy’s business model can be compared to Alibaba or Amazon. Experts, on average, earn 97% from the sale of their courses if they enjoy a good reputation and are loyal to the site, as well as attract an audience on their own. Udemy takes 50% of the sales revenue if the site itself was promoting the materials. If students are attracted by a third-party company, Udemy receives 25% of the profits, exactly like the owner of the course, and the remaining 50% is distributed in favor of the attracting party.
Udemy has raised over $ 300 million in 15 investment rounds, the last of which took place on December 16, 2020. At that moment, the company was valued at $ 3.3 billion. Udemy’s main investors are the largest investment funds such as QD Ventures, Learn Capital, Tencent, Winter Capital and others. Udemy’s closest competitor is Coursera, an education platform that went public in 2021. At the moment, the company’s capitalization is more than $ 5.3 billion with annual revenue of $ 300 million. Udemy management predicts Udemy’s revenue growth up to $ 400 million by the end of this year. Thus, according to the latest investment round, Udemy was valued at a significant discount to Coursera’s current capitalization.
The main risk that Udemy may face is the growing level of competition in digital education. According to experts, the online education market could grow to $ 33.2 billion by 2025, up from $ 8.4 billion in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has become a significant driver of the transformation of the education sector. The industry has received significant support from the growing demand for online services. The most innovative platforms have benefited most from the structural transformation of the education sector.
The high growth potential of the online education market, partnerships with major international companies, as well as a transparent and understandable business model of Udemy, coupled with a growing business, set positive expectations for the company’s entry into the public market.