Insight Venture Partners led the round of investment in the quickly developing online English language school.
Open English, the online English language school, has just raised a staggering $ 43 million in Series C funding led by Insight Venture Partners.
The Miami-based start-up offers a 12-month on-line system in which students, who pay tuition, have 24/7 access to reside teachers and resources on the web. Lately, the company has noticed enormous development in Latin America.
&ldquoI think our investors are very excited–as are we–about the developing middle class in Latin America,&rdquo says Andrés Moreno, CEO and co-founder of Open English. &ldquoFor this class to continue its ascendance, there are a lot of … important expertise that they will require to navigate this planet properly–English and education are a really massive part of that.&rdquo
Launched in 2006, the company&rsquos classes usually have a three-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio, in which students can interact with their fellow students and instructors in a video-chat atmosphere. Students also have access to individual advisors who can assist them track their progress toward fluency.
&ldquoWe see our model as much more efficient and hassle-free to our target market place,&rdquo says Moreno. &ldquoWe want to continue to invest in our item and service with these funds to make sure it is a superior way to discover English.&rdquo
With offices in Miami, Caracas, Bogotá, São Paulo, and Panamá, the company solutions 20 nations and far more than 50,000 students. Moreno says he hopes to enhance that number to 80,000 by the finish of 2012.
He adds that he also will use the money to enhance advertising and advertising and marketing campaigns.
&ldquoInvestors are searching for firms that want cash to grow far more quickly, not to prove that their product functions. And that&rsquos where we are,&rdquo says Moreno.
Open English is one particular of a series of education start-ups that has seen investment lately, like Codecademy, which raised $ 10 million, and Khan Academy, which raised $ 5 million.
