Outschool, an online marketplace for kid-friendly enrichment classes, has raised $110 million in its Series D funding, bringing its valuation to $3 billion just four months after hitting unicorn status.
Founded in 2015 by Amir Nathoo, Mikhail Seregine, and Nick Grandy, Outschool provides a marketplace of live online classes for kids ages 3 to 18. It connects learners, parents, and teachers to create interest-based, small-group learning experiences that take place over video chat. Outschool classes give kids the unique opportunity to explore their interests in-depth via interactive, live video by experienced and independent teachers. Currently, the platform offers more than 140,000 live online classes to more than 1,000,000 learners in 183 countries worldwide.
Outschool offers classes for various subjects including arts, English, life skills, music, coding & tech, health & wellness, math, science & nature, language, and others. With hundreds of thousands of live online classes, it makes sure there is a class for every interest and allows learners to explore new passions, encounter new perspectives, and build new skills by enrolling in classes with peers who share similar interests.
The San Francisco-based EdTech company also curates landing pages on behalf of employers, who then offer the service to working parents. It also offers a concierge service in which parents can share their kids’ interests and availability, and an Outschool team member will book classes on their behalf with employer-paid credits.
Speaking about the company, Amir Nathoo, Co-founder & CEO of Outschool, said in a statement,
“We were an early-stage startup, we had very, very promising growth and a vision for the future, which resulted in our Series A round of funding. Suddenly, we’ve rapidly had to accelerate to being a growth stage company, we’ve gone from 25 employees to 164, and single-digit millions of bookings to over $100 million in bookings.”
Nathoo said the company has prioritized expansion this year and so they are not focused on profitability.
In recent months, Outschool’s employer benefit offering has attracted significant interest. Over the past year, employees have spent over $1.1 million in employer-paid credits on Outschool. The company also wants to build onboarding and enrollment into schools, as well as get on the same wavelength as state and local regulators.
In its previous funding round, Outschool announced that it has dedicated 2% of its stock to reward teachers, in the event of liquidity. The company also established Outschool.org, which has doled out $2,500,000 worth of classes for free to low-income families in the US.
Outschool has last raised $75 million in its Series C funding round led by Coatue and Tiger Global Management in April this year. Prior to that, it raised $45 million in its Series B round in September 2020 led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Reach Capital, Union Square Ventures, SV Angel, FundersClub, Y Combinator, and others.
