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Udemy
American online learning platform From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Udemy (/ˈjuːdəmi/ YOO-də-mee) is an American Web-based learning platform. Founded as a massive open online course (MOOC) provider, in May 2010, by Eren Bali, Gagan Biyani, and Oktay Caglar; the company is based in San Francisco, California,[9] with offices across the United States, and in Australia, India, Ireland, Mexico and Turkey.[10] Its online ecosystem facilitates creation and sharing of courses covering a wide range of subjects. By early 2025, Udemy claimed to have millions of individual users worldwide. Courses are typically video-based and available for on-demand learning.[11]
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In 2007, Eren Bali and Oktay Caglar created a live virtual classroom while living in Turkey. They moved to Silicon Valley two years later, where they founded Udemy with Gagan Biyani in early 2010.[12] In February 2010, the founders tried to raise venture capital funding, but the idea failed to impress investors and they were rejected 30 times, according to Gagan Biyani. In response to this, they bootstrapped development of the product and launched Udemy in May 2010.[13] Within a few months, 1,000 instructors had created about 2,000 courses, and Udemy had nearly 10,000 registered users. It then raised $1 million in venture funding by August 2010.[14][15] Udemy was described by some sources as a MOOC platform during its early growth.[16][17]
On April 22, 2014, chief operating officer Dennis Yang succeeded Eren Bali as CEO.[18] In November 2015, Udemy was criticized for profiting from pirated courses on its platform.[19][20] In 2018, the company expanded its existing anti-piracy efforts via Link-Busters.[21] On February 5, 2019, the Udemy board appointed Gregg Coccari as its new CEO.[22]
As of November 2020, Udemy had raised $273 million in funding from investors, including Tencent Holdings; its valuation was estimated at $3.25 billion;[23] and it had ranked on Fortune's annual Change the World list.[24] By June 2021, Udemy had not generated a profit,[25] with an accumulated deficit of $407.9 million.[26]
On October 29, 2021, Udemy held its IPO in the U.S., and is listed under the symbol UDMY.[27] In February 2023, Greg Coccari announced his retirement as CEO and chairman, to be succeeded by Greg Brown.[28] In 2024, Udemy announced that it would be cutting the percentage of revenues that academic labor received.[29] By that September, it had laid off 30% of its employees and announced plans to hire in lower-cost regions.[9]
Co-founder Eren Bali returned as chief technology officer in August 2024.[30] He was replaced by Ozzie Goldschmied in June 2025.[31]
In early 2025, it was announced that Hugo Sarrazin would replace Greg Brown as CEO. Shares in the company fell by 8.5% shortly after,[32] before rebounding in the second quarter.[33][34] In June 2025 Udemy acquired the image-generation tool Lummi, with the goal of allowing instructors to add AI-generated content to Udemy courses.[35]
In August 2025, Udemy reported its first positive net income since its IPO.[34] The company also began offering learning services in Arabic.[1]
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Udemy is an AI-powered reskilling platform that allows instructors to host online courses on their preferred topics, and to upload videos and other educational materials.[36] Courses are offered in various categories, including business, academics, health and fitness, and music,[36][37] with most covering practical subjects, such as AWS and Azure training, Excel software, or using an iPhone camera.[38]
Courses on Udemy can be paid or free, depending on the instructor.[39] In 2015, the top 10 instructors made more than $17 million in total revenue.[40]
In April 2013, Udemy offered an app for Apple iOS, allowing students to take classes directly from iPhones.[41] The Android version was launched in January 2014.[42] As of January 2014, the iOS app had been downloaded over 1 million times, with 20% of its users accessing their courses via mobile.[43] In July 2016, Udemy's iOS platform includes Apple TV.[44]
In February 2023, the company began offering over 100 courses in Hindi.[2] Introduced in late 2024, the Udemy AI Assistant is a natural language chat interface integrated into its intelligent skills platform, with a skills mapping feature.[45] In August 2025, Udemy launched its Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, which embeds training into enterprise and employee workflows.[46]
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