Online education start - up , Udacity , founded by renowned roboticist and Stanford Professor , Sebastian Thrun , is the latest ‘ unicorn ’ in the tech innovation space . Launched by Thrun at Stanford in 2012 as a free online course in artificial intelligence , Udacity raised $ 105 m on its latest funding round giving it an estimated valuation of $ 650 . It was announced this week that investors , including Baillie Gifford and Google Ventures , and new investors Andreessen Horowitz , Drive Capital , and Charles River Ventures have committed total funding of $ 165 m . Udacity , which currently has 11,000 paying students , partners with companies such as Cisco , Google , and Facebook , rather than universities , to develop course work . Fortune reports that Udacity is investing 30 % per month and believes its annual revenue is around $ 24 m .
Online education start-up, Udacity, founded by Google roboticist and Stanford Professor, Sebastian Thrun, is the latest ‘unicorn’ in the tech innovation space. Launched by Thrun at Stanford in 2012 as a free online course in artificial intelligence, Udacity raised $105m on its latest funding round giving it an estimated valuation of $1.1bn. It was announced this week that investors, including Baillie Gifford and Google Ventures, and new partners Andreessen Horowitz, Drive Capital, and Charles River Ventures have committed total funding of $165m. Udacity, which currently has 11,000 paying students, partners with companies such as Cisco, Google, and Facebook, rather than universities, to develop course work. Fortune reports that Udacity is growing 30% per month and believes its annual revenue is around $24m.