Educative, an interactive hands-on skill development platform for software developers, has raised $12 million in its Series A funding round, the company has announced recently.
The funding round was led by Matrix Partners, with participation from new and returning investors, including Trilogy Equity Partners, Lookout founder Kevin Mahaffey, Mercury.com founder Immad Akhund, Segment founder Ilya Volodarsky, and other angel investors.
Launched in 2016 by Fahim ul Haq with his brother Naeem ul Haq, Educative promises to help software developers learn in-demand tech skills in half the time via its interactive learning platform. Its interactive courses are designed in conjunction with external tech experts and feature text-based training which studies show is significantly faster than video-based courses. Educative is used by individuals as well as enterprises, which use the platform to train their workforce.
Educative claims to have more than 550,000 developers on its platform, with additional 1.5 million learners monthly that tap into its free database of short, concise articles on development topics.
Speaking about the platform, Fahim ul Haq, Co-founder & CEO of Educative, said,
“Like skateboarders or swimmers, developers can’t learn by watching videos. Instead, they learn by doing. We set out to build a learning platform that provides pre-configured training environments in the cloud, making hands-on learning a breeze. Educative now touches 10 percent of developers worldwide. We’ve experienced accelerated growth over the last year as demand for software developers continues to explode. As remote work, career transitions and upskilling continue, this investment will help us respond to the demand and continue to deliver quality courses for software developers and the businesses that employ them.”
With the fresh capital, Educative plans to accelerate its growth in the B2B space where companies including LinkedIn, Samsung, Ford, Visa, and VMware leverage its proprietary technology to onboard new engineers, upskill existing ones and develop their engineering managers. The company will also expand its course and customizable training offerings for teams and enterprises looking to expand the skills of their employees. Educative also plans to hire more than 200 new employees to fuel growth across their global customer base.
Jake Jolis, Partner at Matrix Partners, commented in a statement,
“Educative has made impressive strides to respond to the challenges associated with upskilling software developers in a time when the job market is growing exponentially for experienced programmers. Educative embodies the attributes we value at Matrix Partners – a promising mission, an ambitious team, and a loyal, passionate community. We look forward to helping Educative continue on its current growth trajectory.”
Over the past year, Educative has experienced widespread growth including doubling its user base in the US. The Seattle-based platform saw over 100% growth in non-traditional tech hubs such as San Diego, Columbus, Charlotte, and Raleigh in 2020.
Meanwhile, with the latest funding, the company has raised a total of $14.6 million to date.
