CourseHorse Raises $4 Million From Red Ventures To Accelerate New Market Expansion

NEW YORK, Jan. 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- CourseHorse, the leading marketplace that helps people discover and enroll in trusted local classes, today announced it has raised $4 million in funding led by Red Ventures, a South Carolina based leading technology and marketing company. Existing investors also participated in the round.

Ranging from casual programs, such as cooking and art, to professional courses, like finance and programming, CourseHorse works with more than 1,500 class providers, offering 70,000 classes to 200,000 members, nationwide. Since 2014, during which time Forbes named it one of "America's Most Promising Companies" and the company raised its last seed funding, CourseHorse has tripled its monthly net revenue and inventory, as well as doubled its user base.

"We're constantly seeking new ways to enhance our offerings to CourseHorse's community of students and educators, while deepening our footprint as the leading marketplace for local classes," said CourseHorse CEO & Co-founder Nihal Parthasarathi. "Leveraging Red Ventures' deep expertise in technology and marketing will enable us to grow our community – and team – faster and more efficiently."

The company will use the $4 million Series B investment to accelerate new market expansion beyond New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and expand its engineering team to build out its product offerings.

"We were impressed with CourseHorse's ability to build a rapidly expanding business with only small investments to-date, and feel confident that we'll be able to accelerate their growth as they expand into new markets and explore deeper partnerships with education providers," said Brian Shaw, Director of Financial Analysis for Red Ventures, and new CourseHorse board member.

The $4 million Series B funding follows $1.8 million in seed rounds from angel investors, including: Brian Cohen, Owen Davis, Paige Craig, Scott Banister, Charlie Cheever, Clark Landry, and Learn Capital. Offline, non-degree learning is a $27 billion market, which is quadruple the size of the online learning market in the U.S. While much attention has been paid to online-class providers such as Lynda.com, Udemy, and the MOOC, CourseHorse has quietly amassed a leadership position in the much larger local discovery space.

Current CourseHorse educators in New York include Columbia University, Stanford Graduate School of Business, CUNY, SUNY, The New School, General Assembly, and New York Public Library; in Los Angeles include California State University, Santa Monica College, and Los Angeles City College (LACC), Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and in Chicago include The Newberry, Evanston Art Center, Lillstreet Art Center, The Art Center Highland Park (TAC); Chicago Photography Center, and Chopping Block.

"As the only major discovery engine that helps local learners, we fulfill a major need that continues to grow as new local schools and classes are launched every day," said Parthasarathi. "Moreover, once we introduce online options, consumers will be able to compare local and online learning options for the first time both in the U.S. and internationally."

About CourseHorse:
Based in downtown Manhattan, CourseHorse is the leading marketplace that helps people discover and enroll in trusted local classes, ranging from casual programs (such as cooking and art) to professional courses (like finance and programming). Learning is a lifelong pursuit and CourseHorse's goal is simple: to make that pursuit easier. Named by Forbes as "America's Most Promising Companies," CourseHorse works with over 1,500 class providers, offering 70,000 classes to 200,000 members nationwide.

About Red Ventures
Founded in 2000, Red Ventures employs more than 2,900 people and is the country's largest technology-enabled platform for growing sales and marketing businesses. Its expertise spans across multiple industries including Home Services, Energy, Financial Services, Insurance and Software. Success is driven by advanced internet analytics, proprietary technology and the company's greatest competitive advantage – the people. Red Ventures has been named a Best Place to Work in Charlotte, NC, for eight years running.

PRESS CONTACTS:

Centerpiece Public Relations
Lisa Hagendorf
[email protected] | 917-623-7091

Red Ventures
Katie Zach
[email protected] | 980-318-5549   

SOURCE CourseHorse

Related Links

http://coursehorse.com