About Udemy
“We’re confident that continuous learning — for learning new skills or upskilling to find new employment — is table stakes for the modern world.”
— Irwin Anand, Managing Director for Udemy, India
Udemy is an EduTech company that runs a global online learning marketplace, and the success story of Udemy begins exactly there: providing self-paced, non-degree education focused on both hard and soft skills. The success story of Udemy is built on offering thousands of courses across categories such as finance, development, business, IT and software, design, marketing, lifestyle, photography, music, health and academics, while also hosting content in more than 65 languages.
A key part of the success story of Udemy is scale: the platform serves over 40 million learners, more than 50,000 instructors, and is available across over 180 countries. Udemy also operates Udemy for Business-style subscriptions and government upskilling programs, diversifying the success story of Udemy beyond individual course sales.
How Does Udemy Work?
The success story of Udemy is the story of a marketplace model. Courses are created by instructors — usually subject-matter experts — and the platform handles discovery, payments, and delivery. The success story of Udemy rests on on-demand courses that learners can start and finish whenever they want, including video lectures, slides, text, quizzes, assignments and coding exercises.
Another advantage inside the success story of Udemy is discoverability: learners can preview trailers or finish the first lecture before buying, which lowers the risk of a bad purchase and helped the success story of Udemy grow through word of mouth. See also our Udemy coupons guide for how learners access these courses cheaper.
Udemy Founders
The success story of Udemy was set in motion in 2010 by three founders: Eren Bali, Gagan Biyani and Oktay Caglar. The success story of Udemy later came under the leadership of Gregg Coccari from February 2019, guiding the success story of Udemy into its global expansion phase.
The Origin of Udemy
The origin chapter of the success story of Udemy starts with Eren Bali learning on a single internet-connected computer and winning national math Olympiads in Turkey. After working as a freelance web developer, he built a live virtual classroom in 2007 and brought the idea to Silicon Valley with Biyani and Caglar, where the success story of Udemy nearly failed 30 times with investors before the platform raised its first $1 million.
“It was an extremely tough start. None of us had family money… I was a consultant and flew cross-country every week.”
— Gagan Biyani, co-founder of Udemy
Udemy launched publicly in May 2010 with both free and paid courses taught by experts — the moment the success story of Udemy became a real marketplace rather than a side project, setting the stage for the success story of Udemy that followed.
Udemy Business Model
- The success story of Udemy's business model is built on charging instructors a fee for every sale made on the platform.
- That fee ranges from 3 to 75 percent depending on how the learner was acquired.
- Alongside course sales, the success story of Udemy also charges an annual subscription that gives businesses and employees access to the firm's content, such as the Udemy Personal Plan style model.
Udemy Revenue Model
The success story of Udemy runs two course types — free and paid — where free courses drive value and word-of-mouth marketing while paid courses generate revenue. The core of the success story of Udemy's revenue model is the fee charged from students and instructors for hosting courses, with a simple split: 50% to the platform when it promotes the course, 50% to the instructor, 100% to the instructor when the instructor markets it themselves, and a 25/50/25 split when affiliate links are involved.
The second pillar of the success story of Udemy's revenue model is Udemy for Business, sold as Team and Enterprise annual plans — the engine behind the fastest-growing chapter of the success story of Udemy.
Udemy Growth in India
“India has consistently been one of the top markets for Udemy… We have seen a huge rate of growth in online learning in India during the Covid situation.”
— Irwin Anand, Managing Director, Udemy
India is one of the brightest chapters in the success story of Udemy, with enrollments reportedly rising by 200 percent during the lockdown period as people upskilled from home. The success story of Udemy there also reflects strong demand for Udemy for Business, which at the time reached roughly $100 million in annual recurring revenue — a milestone in the success story of Udemy.
Udemy Funding
The success story of Udemy also includes a strong funding chapter: the platform reached a valuation of about $2 billion after its Series E round led by Benesse Holdings, and later engaged in talks to raise around $100 million in a fresh private round that would push its valuation past $3 billion. In total the success story of Udemy raised multiple rounds, including about $50 million (roughly Rs 371 crore) from global EdTech and growth funds such as Learn Capital.
Conclusion
“Udemy’s rapid growth shows us the level of demand from students, instructors and companies for affordable skills training.”
— Gregg Coccari, CEO of Udemy
The success story of Udemy shows how a mission — improving lives through learning — can scale into a global platform. The success story of Udemy is far from over, and for learners it also means access to free and low-cost courses worth exploring via free Udemy deals.