Coursera Acquires Udemy For $930 Million

Coursera announced on Wednesday that it will acquire rival online learning platform Udemy in an all-stock deal that values the combined company at $2.5 billion, a move that brings together two of the largest U.S.-based players in an industry that has struggled since pandemic-era enrollment highs faded. Under the terms of the agreement, Udemy shareholders will receive 0.8 shares of Coursera for each share they hold, valuing Udemy at roughly $930 million. Based on Coursera's last closing price, the offer works out to $6.35 per Udemy share, an 18.3% premium. The deal is expected to close in the second half of next year, pending regulatory and shareholder approvals.

The two companies are betting that a combined platform will be better positioned to pursue corporate customers seeking to retrain workers in artificial intelligence, data science and software development. Coursera has built its business on partnerships with universities and institutions to offer degree programs and professional certificates, while Udemy operates a marketplace where independent instructors sell courses directly to consumers and businesses. Both stocks have significantly underperformed this year. Udemy shares have fallen about 35% and Coursera is down roughly 7%, leaving both trading well below their post-IPO highs as investors remain cautious about competition and pricing pressure in the sector.

Udemy

[Anonymous Coward]

Also known as "You dummy." Courses are complete garbage.

The expert on meaningless garbage has spoken

[shanen]

'Nuff said, but now I feel like I need to clarify that I'm not an expert on garbage. Probably not an expert on anything. Purely a dabbler?

Perhaps a substantive comment to follow, but not here.

Re:

[shanen]

Thank it for its cooperation?

I feel that this will improve education

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

about as much as having a former WWF executive with a single-digit IQ serving as Education Secy.

I'm sure glad I have a real education in the 80's.

Re:

[shanen]

about as much as having a former WWF executive with a single-digit IQ serving as Education Secy.

I'm sure glad I have a real education in the 80's.

Quoted to deal with the censor trolls, and in this case I do agree with your sentiments even though I think the comment is kind of orthogonal to the main topic. But your Subject is still relevant if "this" is taken as referring to the money part of it. Education as a for-profit business is mostly a problem and rarely part of any solution. My mind is boggled by the "valuation" of $2.5 billion.

Some years ago I did spend quite a bit of time taking online classes, mostly on EdX and Coursera. However, they were

Re:

[HiThere]

That would, indeed, probably be a good solution. The doing of it, though, is "not simple".

If you could trust an LLM not to hallucinate, that would be a good job for LLMs. There was a system called PLATO that tried something like that several decades ago, but it was both much too expensive and much too limited. Also much too inflexible.

Re:

[omnichad]

Using the LLM as a high level classifier of your knowledge to hand you the pieces of the already-produced learning materials that you actually need to know and iterating on that would be the way to go.

Re: I feel that this will improve education

[jedwidz]

Please spend more time with contemporary LLMs and contemporary human teachers. You may end up revising your position in favor of the LLMs.

Re:

[shanen]

Why did you quote "not simple". You made me think I had written that, and I certainly don't think so. Maybe you should have used bold for emphasis?

Probably's good

[InternetGoblin]

You know how Mozilla's 'going all-in' on AI? Wouldn't it be pretty cool if you had a browser solely for education? Like, every action, premeditated or otherwise, would inform the user on things that just happened and/or link you to things that relate to that previous action. But otherwise, I don't think that this merger can be all bad. Sounds pretty helpful

Things that work

[Luckyo]

I remember seeing coursera ad reads on youtube videos, and they all pitched it as "improve yourself" kind of a thing.

I guess that didn't work out and they are refocusing on corporate sector instead?

Online learning only works for the motivated.

[Fly Swatter]

Which means it does not work in schools, children are simply not motivated to self teach. That is why the teacher is still the most important component to schooling, and we have taken away their ability to motivate the children because they can't kick out the phones or dumb-ass trouble makers.

crap

[meandmatt]

I tried a coursera course, the test failed to run, couldn't click one of the test buttons. Went to a proper location to take the test after studying. I was fully ready. They could not fix it, they could not get back to me over the next several days after several attempts. I finally gave up, and had my company push them for a refund.