Coursera

Coursera is an international open online education platform that offers a set of information and educational programs, including interactive projects with industry experts, courses, specializations, certification programs, as well as bachelor's and master's degrees from 200 universities and educational institutions around the world. Among them are 8 Russian universities, which have placed more than 150 courses on the platform in Russian and English. Coursera allows students to achieve their educational, career and personal goals throughout their lives. More than 6,000 educational institutions use Coursera for advanced training and retraining of their employees, students and students, including in such popular fields as data science, technology and business.

As of March 31, 2021, 82 million students were registered on Coursera.

Performance indicators

2020: Revenue growth to $294 million, loss - $67 million

In 2020, Coursera's revenue reached $294 million against $184 million, and the company's net losses during this time increased from $47 million to $67 million.

History

2021: Entry into the NYSE exchange, estimated at $4.3 billion

March 31, 2021 began trading in Coursera shares on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker - COUR). As part of the IPO, the company sold 15.7 million securities (14.66 million shares are a new issue and 1.07 million are shares owned by existing shareholders) at a price of $33 apiece, as a result of which it managed to raise about $518 million. At this price, the market capitalization of the educational platform amounted to $4.3 billion, while according to the results of the last investment round, it was estimated at $2.6 billion.

According to the prospectus to the IPO, Coursera intends to direct the funds received to replenish working capital, marketing, research, capital and administrative costs. For example, on the salary of employees, the number of which in 2020 increased from 512 to 779 people.

EdTech-company Coursera entered the NYSE exchange with a valuation of $4.3 billion

The underwriters of the IPO were 13 financial organizations. Among them are Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and UBS. They received an option for 2.36 million shares. If banks exercise the option, then the number of shares in free float will increase to 18.09 million. In total, 12.1% of their total shares were issued to the exchange.

By the end of March 2021, Coursera collaborates with more than 200 universities, offers courses, both paid and free, in various fields of knowledge, gives tests, and conducts exams. 77 million course participants are registered on the platform. The total volume of investments attracted by the company exceeded $443 million.

The Coursera IPO is an exit for Yuri Milner, who through his DST Global fund invested in the company in 2013 in Round B, as well as for Anton Alikov's Arctic Ventures. How much Russian investors were able to earn on Coursera is not specified.^[1]

Business in Russia

2022: Termination of cooperation with Russian organizations

On March 5, 2022, against the backdrop of Russia's special operation in Ukraine, the American educational platform Coursera announced that it was ceasing cooperation with Russian organizations.

2020: Coursera opened free access for college and university students

From June 1, 2020, students of colleges and universities around the world can study at Coursera and receive certificates for free. Active students and graduates of this year with confirmed e-mail addresses on the domains of educational institutions can register and get free access. More than 3,800 courses, 150 interactive projects with industry experts, 400 specializations and 11 professional certification programs became available for them. Free recording is open until July 31. From the moment of registration, students will have time until September 30, 2020 to complete the selected programs.

Shravan Goli, Coursera's product director, said, "Nearly 70% of students worldwide have been affected by campus closures and the suspension of full-time learning due to the coronavirus pandemic. Among them are hundreds of millions of students of colleges and universities in different countries. No one knows when they will be able to return to full-time training. In addition, due to the cancellation of most summer internships this year, students are concerned about how such an extended break in studies will affect their ability to start a successful career. Training should continue, even if campuses are closed. At this difficult time, more than a million university students have already begun using Coursera, and we are inspired by the role we can play in mitigating the effects of the pandemic. "

During the period of free access, students will be able to receive diplomas from the best universities in the world, including the University of Michigan, Yale University and Duke University, and professional certification programs from companies such as Google and SAS will help them master the necessary skills and prepare for real work.

Coursera's Russian partners also took part in the initiative, students will be able to study most of the popular courses among Russian users. For example, "Fundamentals of Programming on Python" and "Economics for non-economists" from the Higher School of Economics, "Undertake Yourself!" From the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, "Fundamentals of Photography" from Novosibirsk State University and "Fundamentals of the Search for the Cause of Life. Part 1. How to stop postponing business for later? "From the National Research Nuclear University" MEPhI. "

After September 30, students will have free access to interactive projects with industry experts: hands-on training. Such projects include, for example, data analysis using Plotly and Python, development of Java applications in Android Studio, marketing in social networks using Canva. The interactive training format allows you to learn new skills in less than two hours under the clear guidance of an expert.

2017

1 million students from the countries of the former USSR

More than 1 million students from the countries of the former USSR are registered on the Coursera platform, of which 655 thousand are from Russia. The number of students on a paid basis has grown by 83% over the past year, which made Russia the largest and fastest growing non-English-speaking region for Coursera.

57% of students from Russia are interested in career development (in the USA and Great Britain - 48% and 40%, respectively). 85% of Russian students who graduated from Coursera report professional development, and 35% - about raising, finding a new job or opening their own business.

Industrial partners

Along with eight Russian universities - partners of Coursera (HSE, MIPT, St. Petersburg State University, NSU, TSU, MEPhI, MGIMO and St. Petersburg State University), courses on the project also began to be placed by Sberbank Corporate University and Yandex. Among the company's global industrial partners are IBM, Cisco, PwC, etc.

The first two courses of Sberbank Corporate University - "Fundamentals of Risk Management in the Bank" and "Banking and Finance" - are already available for Coursera users.

Yandex specializes in applied courses in computer science and data science. The first series of courses from Yandex on Big Data for Data Engineers was developed for a worldwide audience in English. In the future, it is planned to place more than twenty new courses.

Yandex already has experience in jointly creating courses with Coursera partner universities. The MIPT Machine Learning and Data Analysis course series and the English-language specialization Data Structures and Algorithms HSE and UCSD, developed together with Yandex experts, are among the most successful Coursera courses worldwide.

Sergey Chernyshev, head of the talent department, Yandex: "Today, more and more people are becoming participants in online courses. Not surprisingly, these courses have advantages over traditional training formats. First of all, they give the opportunity to study remotely. We at Yandex have been training employees for 10 years and not only - we have many educational projects for people of any age. However, applications for study at SHAD or in the project "Mobilization" come from thousands of people, and we can only accept a few hundred for full-time training. Now that we have become an official partner of Coursera, Yandex online courses will be published on this platform and will become available to a much larger number of students. "

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