@MemiLavi I hope Udemy is not profitable. Profits are of no importance now. They clearly stated the motivation for this round, which is simply to capture market share. Let me explain. When you are a public company (some are encouraging an IPO which I hope is not done soon) you have an obligation to file quarterly reports and they are scrutizined for expense control, cash flow, etc. The market looks for or demands profitability. That restricts investment in marketing and expansion. If you are a private company profitability may be completely unimportant. I want Udemy to spend as much as they can in order to expand their presence in the market, capture customers, and build their brand. Goldman Sachs valued Udemy at 3.5 billion value for this funding. Only a year or so ago it was around two billion (I forget the actual number). This increase in value is not because they threw off profits. It is because they reinvested all possible cash flow in hiring, marketing, building out their technology platform, etc. They are now buying advertizing on television to attract new customers and build their brand. I want Udemy to be the dominant brand in online learning as YouTube (video), Google (search), Amazon (retail), Facebook (social media) have become THE go to brands. The judgment is about the potential market. Let us say that the current online market is a ten billion dollar market, actual current sales. But, let us guess that the market size five years from now is going to be one hundred billion. As we know from emails we receive, there are a hundred small players trying to grow in this market because they recognize that market potential. One or two players are going to grow to dominate the market and it will be the players who make the largest and most effective investment in building their brand and capturing market share. So we can have Udemy spin off some current cash flow to early investors now which produces no value to us instructors, or we can have them invest every possible dollar in growth, which increases your and my revenue. I think the choice is obvious. I don't give a flip about them spinning off profits and paying taxes. I want them to invest everything in acquiring new customers. This is what Amazon did for years and they created a market dominant position. That I believe is Udemy's strategy.
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