 "Singapore government participates in Coursera’s series C round of funding")
Singapore’s EDBI, the corporate investment arm of the country’s Economic Development Board, has participated in Coursera’s series C round, it announced today. The US-based online open-access course provider raised $49.5 million at the end of August, in a round led by US venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates, one of Coursera’s original investors.
Also participating in the round were existing investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, GSV Asset Management, International Finance Corporation, and Learn Capital, as well as new investor Times Internet.
EDBI’s participation brings the series C funding to $61.1 million, according to the announcement. This puts EDBI’s investment in Coursera to around $11.6 million. Including this round, Coursera’s total funding so far is around $146.1 million.
The US company will put the funding toward expanding its range of content to address growing demand from around the world. Asia will be a key market to focus on, since over a quarter of its users come from there, and it’s growing fast. The company will look to sourcing new, career-relevant content to expand its market share.
Coursera was founded in 2012 by Stanford computer scientists Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng. Andrew, who comes from Singapore himself, helped found the Google Brain project and currently serves as chief scientist of Baidu Research in Silicon Valley.
According to research by Ambient Insight, the self-paced e-learning market has reached $47.9 billion in 2015, and revenues are projected to reach $50.4 billion by 2020. Among the territories with the highest growth rates in this area are Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and Bangladesh.
