InVenture Partners leads Series A funding in Netology

InVenture Partners has led a Series A funding round in Netology, a Russian online education platform. InVenture Partners has secured a minority stake in the company based on Netology’s $5.6 million valuation.

Press Release

Netology, a leading Russian online education platform offering interactive video courses, today announced that it has completed Series A round of financing from InVenture Partners.

As a result of the deal, InVenture Partners has secured a minority stake in the project based on $5.6M Netology’s business valuation.

Founded in 2011, Netology offers interactive online training in various areas of internet technologies. InVenture Partners provided the first external investment, before that Netology relied on founders’ contributions.

Netology utilizes a subscription model of monetization, granting access to all available courses for a single monthly payment. Company’s revenue has tripled over 2013.

Maxim Spiridonov, Netology CEO:

“Online education market is just starting to emerge nowadays. Being the pioneers of online education industry, we are not only creating interfaces and software, but are also developing new presentation techniques and knowledge assessment methods.

Series A investment will allow us to accelerate our development process significantly and enhance efficiency and convenience of education for our users”.

The cash will be used to further develop Netology’s interactive education platform, launch mobile version of its services and create new courses and training programs.

Sergey Azatyan, cofounder and managing partner, InVenture Partners:

«We have been actively looking for a platform which proved to be able to generate significant revenues on the challenging market of online education. Netology team has successfully foothold in the market with its superior product. With our support, Netology is in a perfect position to scale its business”.

Russia demonstrates impressive growth rates for the emerging market of online education services. Over 66.5 million people or 57% of adult population of Russia are using internet monthly. Online platforms provide the opportunity for high-quality education for people living in remote regions of the country and also for those who doesn’t have time to attend usually time-consuming offline classes and need more versatile options.

On the international market, Lynda.com and Teamtreehouse.com offer services, which are close to Netology. Still, unique combination of unlimited access to the whole catalogue of courses under subscription model, interactive tests allowing to measure students’ performance and the focus on the development of courses tailored specifically for Russian market demands will help Netology to stand out and prove its competitive position.
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About Netology:
Netology is an online education center offering courses in e-commerce, internet business and web development.
The core product built by Netology is an online platform with interactive courses designed in line with demands of advanced internet users. Each course offers a combination of video lectures and tests with game elements. This structure helps to keep students’ attention and independently track the progress of each student.
Netology’s business is based on subscription model. Users can gain the access to all available courses under one subscription. Currently the platform offers over 30 courses which have already been completed by over 3 thousand users.
By the end of 2014, over a hundred interactive courses will be available on Netology’s platform. Service could be used on PC and mobile devices.
Netology’s website: www.netology.ru

About InVenture Partners:
InVenture Partners is an innovative investment fund focused on funding the disruptive consumer technology startups.
Founded in 2012 by Sergey Azatyan and Anton Inshutin, InVenture Partners started with $100M capital. Fund looks for teams with a novel approach to business models based on disruptive technologies. Supported businesses are able to change the face of economy, to solve real problems of people’s lives and to increase the transparency of market. InVenture Partners backs a wide range of ventures across technology industry with an emphasis on consumer technologies, financial and telecom products, online marketing and ads, tourism and corporate services.
Fund’s portfolio currently includes the taxi booking service GetTaxi, virtual mobile network Fogg, travel agency OnlineTours, online ad agency GetGoing, mobile payments service 2Can.