SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Udemy, the largest global marketplace for learning and teaching online, today announced that its corporate learning solution, Udemy for Business, has scaled from $1 million to $100 million annual recurring revenue (ARR) in just five years.
Udemy for Business is powered by Udemy, the world’s largest learning marketplace. Real-world practitioners can share their knowledge on Udemy; today, more than 57,000 instructors teach over 130,000 courses in over 65 languages. Udemy for Business curates 7,000 of the highest-rated courses from the marketplace covering the most in-demand professional skills that employees need to become better subject-matter experts, leaders, and collaborators.
“We’ve entered an era of continuous change, and companies and individuals need continuous learning to thrive,” said Stephanie Stapleton, Vice President of Customer Success at Udemy. “The pandemic has only accelerated the global movement toward online learning. We’re thrilled to partner with some of the most innovative companies in the world to help them build a culture of learning to drive business performance and results in a time of change.”
Companies realize the ROI of learning
IDC found that for every dollar spent on Udemy for Business, organizations could realize an 869% return on investment in three years or nearly 9 incremental dollars for every dollar invested in Udemy for Business solutions. When the pandemic resulted in shelter-in-place orders around the world, companies turned to Udemy for Business to help their workforces meet a new reality. Udemy for Business experienced a 90% surge in enrollments as employees adapted to remote work. Popular topics included Virtual Teams (1,523% increase in enrollments), Coaching (322%), and Stress Management (235%). Consumption has stayed high as employees continue to learn through change.
“Success in today’s rapidly changing world is impossible without an ongoing focus on continuous learning, up-skilling, and re-skilling,” said Peter Fox, Global Head of Digital Learning and Talent Technology at Citi. “Over the five years we’ve partnered together, Udemy for Business has become Citi’s most used digital learning content library. Udemy’s strong content library aligned to in-demand skills has empowered our employees to adapt to change, helped them ramp up on new technologies quickly, and promoted innovation.”
Global customer momentum
In an increasingly unpredictable global economy, thousands of customers like Unilever, Eventbrite, PayPal, Apple, Survey Monkey, The World Bank, Okta, Unicef, Gamestop, and Box trust Udemy for Business to have the most current courses designed to empower employees. Whether employees need to understand how to effectively work remotely or learn emerging skills like Neural Networks, TensorFlow, and Growth Mindset, Udemy for Business has dynamic and actionable courses taught by real-world experts. To date, nearly 2 billion minutes have been consumed by corporate customers which directly correlates to the sustained triple-digit growth of the business. In 2020, Udemy for Business has sustained a high customer retention rate while achieving a series of notable customer wins like the United States Air Force, Fandom, TIBCO Software, The Walt Disney Corp, Tata Inc., NTT, and Toyota Motors.
“Udemy has been Intuit’s thought partner from the beginning of our journey offering and promoting the value of continued on-demand learning to our large workforce. Our partnership has allowed us to capitalize on employee eagerness to learn and we have seen tremendous growth and depth of skills and talent,” said Humera Shahid, Vice President Talent Development, Intuit. “We’re leaning heavily into learning to ensure we have the skills we need today and in the future to deliver for our customers, and Udemy is a key partner to help us get there.”
“Lyft team members embrace learning and understand the critical role it plays in helping them achieve their full potential,” said Uli Heitzlhofer, Senior Director People Learning and Development at Lyft. “We’ve worked with Udemy for more than five years because their content is relevant and up-to-date, and our team members can find helpful learning resources whenever they need them. As we’ve shifted to everything virtual, we’ve seen a three-fold increase in course enrollments in Q2’20, highlighting the value this partnership can bring during times of major transitions.”
Global Expansion and Employee Growth
Following a $50 million funding round at a $2 billion valuation earlier this year, the company has been investing in markets around the world and expanding its local presence. With a sharp focus on localizing the product experience, as a third of the corporate users are outside of the U.S, Udemy for Business expanded access to new course collections in French, German, Japanese, Spanish, and Portuguese, taught by native instructors. In India, Japan, Australia, and the broader APAC region, the company plans on increasing the capacity of the team by 50% to add new customer success, sales operations, and marketing jobs to further support local customers like Samsung Electronics, Vodafone, Accenture Japan, Toshiba Digital Solutions, Tech Mahindra, and PWC Japan, among others.
“Continuous learning is not only essential to thrive in a changing technology landscape but also absolutely crucial for business competitiveness,” said Anurag Seth, Vice President and Head of Talent Transformation, Crowdsourcing and Business Continuity, Wipro Limited. “That’s why we’re focused on transforming our talent capabilities and ensuring our employees are well versed in the newest technologies and practices. Udemy has been an essential partner in upskilling a third of our workforce with content on the latest and more in-demand skills.”
About Udemy
With a mission to improve lives through learning, Udemy is the world’s largest online learning destination that helps students, businesses, and governments gain the skills they need to compete in today’s economy. Thirty-five million students are mastering new skills from 57,000 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. Eighty percent of Fortune 100 companies trust Udemy for employee upskilling. Udemy is privately held and headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Denver, Brazil, India, Ireland, and Turkey. Udemy investors include Insight Partners, Prosus, Norwest Venture Partners, Stripes, and Benesse Holdings.
