The edtech industry continues its boom in the Bay Area as remote learning becomes the new normal for most communities nationwide.
Mountain View-based online learning platform Udacity announced Tuesday that it signed a $75 million debt facility agreement with Hercules Capital. The company previously raised $170 million in equity funding from investors including Andreessen Horowitz. At the time of its Series D in 2015, the unicorn received a $1 billion valuation.
The tech education platform has witnessed a significant uptick in client interest since the onset of the pandemic. According to Udacity, the company recently reached profitability, with its Q3 bookings up 120 percent year over year.
The startup originally set out to provide courses to individuals looking to expand their skill sets or change career paths. On Udacity, students can obtain “nanodegrees” in tech-related subjects like programming, autonomous driving, artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
The company has since made its coursework available to business clients. Udacity can be used at the enterprise level to train existing employees in a variety of tech-related subjects.
“It’s always more cost-effective to upskill your existing workforce than replace them. Our clients clearly understand this and see [us] as a key part of their long-term workforce development plans,” Gabe Delporto, CEO of Udacity, said in a statement. “This new financing will help us provide global workers with the skills they need to future-proof their careers.”
As part of the company’s continual investment in growth, Udacity will use the funds to attract more business clients to its platform as it continues to scale.
So far, businesses that have partnered with Udacity for internal employee training include big names like IBM, Qualcomm, Google, Facebook and AT&T. According to Udacity, its list of clients also includes three of the four branches of the United States Department of Defense.
The company has additional offices in the United Kingdom, Egypt, Germany, India and the United Arab Emirates.
Udacity has raised $238 million in funding to date, according to the company.
