Udemy’s new president discusses the reskilling company’s future

Udemy, which launched more than a decade ago, has sold courses to 50 million students through its digital learning platform. But new president Greg Brown sees exponential growth" opportunities in doubling down on its enterprise arm, which currently has over 7,000 customers.

The shift within Udemy has been brewing for years, but recent tailwinds have shifted the way the business closes contracts.

In a phone interview, Brown said Udemy for Business, the company's corporate learning arm, blew through $100 million ARR," a metric it announced in October.

One hundred million dollars was very conservative," Brown said. While he wouldn't share the latest metrics, he hinted that revenue had grown around 90%, which would put Udemy for Business' new trajectory around $200 million in ARR. That's a solid bump, considering it took five years for the arm to hit $100 million ARR, and a much smaller time frame to essentially double it.

Udemy declined to confirm the new ARR total, instead opting to share a slew of other growth metrics to indicate growth, including the fact that it has seen more than 480 million course enrollments and owns over 155,000 courses. The startup said that it has 40 million students, but in 2019 the business said it had 50 million users, based on a previous interview. When asked about the user drop, Udemy said that we've made some changes to our metrics as we grow as a company to better reflect user engagement."

The opportunity that the company sees has really forced us to reallocate resources and strategy," Brown said. While Udemy will continue to invest" in its direct-to-consumer business, it sees bigger potential in its enterprise product.