Claiming to be the leading live, online classroom for creative entrepreneurs in the world, creativeLIVE raised USD21.5 million in its latest Series B financing round. Led by The Social+Capital Partnership, the series round also saw participation from existing investor Greylock Partners and other investors. Since receiving USD7.5 million in an earlier investment round from Greylock, creativeLIVE nabbed a total of less than YSD30 million within 16 months.
Taking cue from the business model of non-profit educational website Khan Academy, founders Chase Jarvis and Craig Swanson launched the live online classroom in the beginning of 2010. Not only the content was offered for free, creativeLIVE provides a live classroom for creative entrepreneurs.
creativeLIVE had already hit more than 2 million students who had consumed over one billion in learning content video minuts.
TechCrunch said in its report that the creativeLIVE team had been scaling its production in order to keep up with the opportunities presented in content delivery and online education. The company has since built state-of-the-art studios to be used for its live, online classes in Seattle and San Francisco. The new funding would reportedly support creativeLIVE's expansion plans, including an increase in its infrastructure investments. Former president of Viacom Digital and now chief executive of creativeLIVE Mika Salmi said proceeds from the Series B financing round would also be used to hire more members for its data science and engineering teams in the next year. However, Salmi's lips were sealed when asked to provide more details about the company's investments in infrastructure.
Salmi also said that despite the company not being able to offer certifications on learned classes unlike in Lynda.com, he said creativeLIVE's core competency was to help its students turn its passions into potential careers. But, Salmi hinted that creativeLIVE might go in that direction in the future.
Revenue is another subject that Salmi refused to divulge. However, Salmi said its current business model takes care of the revenue side of the business.
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