Coursera is a California-based online education company that partners with organisations, financial institutions and universities to offer online classes on their platform. Online education has been the primary mode of study for students since the COVID-19 pandemic and in recent highlights, Coursera also debuts on the New York Stock Exchange.
Yes! Recently, Coursera enjoyed the first day of its trading on the New York Stock Exchange and surprisingly, the company witnessed a 36% jump in shares because global investors are eager to get into the hottest sector i.e., education technology pushing the threshold to 36% beyond the Initial Public Offering.
According to a report by Reuters, Coursera’s valuation rose to over USD 5.8 billion, closing at USD 45 per share. As mentioned in a report by PitchBook, the last valuation of the company before its Initial Public Offering was USD 2.57 billion after a private funding round held last year in July.
Founded back in the year 2012 by Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng, Coursera on Tuesday priced over 15.7 million shares at the upper end of its USD 33 range, raising more than USD 519 million. Reuters has also reported that approximately 1.1 million shares were directly offered by selling stockholders.
Having said that, the impact of COVID-19 on the overall education system has been nothing but disruptive. Of course, COVID-19 induced lockdowns gave education technology companies to rise up and serve their purpose of offering learning services to students of all age groups through an online platform. The pandemic has now shifted the default learning base from schools, colleges, universities to digital learning rather than physical teaching. During the peak months of the novel Coronavirus, Coursera has reported a 60% jump in revenue to over USD 293 million.
According to the statistics shared by the company, over 9.2 million new users registered themselves on the platform and during the pandemic year of 2020, the number drastically rose to 30.6 million. Education is important and this transition to digital learning platforms has not just benefitted Coursera but also other competitors in the market such as Byju’s, Unacademy, Udemy and many more.
Coursera also introduced the ‘Coursera for Campus’ program during the pandemic months to help educational institutions, organisations and colleges in teaching students who are stuck at home. The start-up offers directly to students through universities to provide online learning material as a part of this digital shift in the education system because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
