Skillshare’s Online Learning Platform Receives $66M Series D Boost

Skillshare, which focuses on online learning for creative fields, announced a $66 million Series D funding round led by OMERS Growth Equity 1, the company said Monday.

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Existing investors Union Square Ventures, Amasia, Burda Principal Investments and Spero Ventures also participated in the investment. With the latest round, New York-based Skillshare has raised a total of $108 million since its inception in 2010, according to the company. Today’s funding is the largest investment to date and follows a $20 million Series C secured in 2018, according to Crunchbase data.

As part of the investment, Saar Pikar, managing director at OMERS Growth Equity, will join the Skillshare board of directors.

Skillshare has more than 12 million registered members and over 30,000 video-based classes in creative fields, such as graphic design, photography, painting and interior design, all taught by industry experts.

The global pandemic prompted the online learning market to grow quickly, and it is now poised to become a $375 billion marketplace by 2026. For example, in the first half of 2020, Skillshare’s average rate of engagement more than doubled in most markets, and sales are nearly doubling year-over-year, the company said.

As a result, Skillshare plans to use the new funding to create more localized experiences for international students, as well as grow its enterprise offerings called Skillshare for Teams, create more opportunities for teachers, invest in engagement tools, marketing efforts and new formats for teachers to earn revenue.

“Our shift as a business earlier this year has uniquely positioned us to meet that need and resulted in incredible growth, deeper user engagement and interest from new partners during a time where creativity is more important than ever,” said CEO Matt Cooper in a written statement.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias