TEACHABLE, a service that helps anyone build and sell online courses, has raised $4 million in a Series A round led by Accomplice Ventures, Naval Ravikant and Matt Brezina. Founded in 2014, the New York City startup says it has hosted more than 20,000 online courses from 7,500 instructors, reaching more than three million students.
Unlike Udemy and similar services that enable people to teach classes online, Teachable does not position itself as a marketplace where users can browse a public course catalog. “We are a technology platform where people make and own their own website,” CEO Ankur Nagpal tells EdSurge. Enterprise customers include The New York Times, which hosts its online education programs on Teachable.
The revenue model is also different: Rather than take a percentage of course fees, Teachable charges course creators a flat monthly fee ranging from $39 to $200 per month. Teachers decide how much to charge students; the top-grossing instructors charge on average $100 per course, according to Nagpal, although tuition can range from $10 to $1,000. Most courses are non-academic, skewing towards creative skills and hobbies aimed for lifelong learners.
Teachable instructors sold nearly $30 million worth of courses last year, according to the company. The goal for 2017: $120 million. Nagpal adds that the company enjoyed nearly $450,000 in revenue from subscription fees in December 2016 alone.
The company has previously raised $4.5 million and aims to double its team to 60 employees this year.
