UPDATED 22:48 EDT / SEPTEMBER 30 2015

NEWS

Digital economy educational startup General Assembly raises $70m Series D

Digital economy educational startup General Assembly, Inc. has raised $70 million Series D in a round led by Advance Publications and Wellington Capital Management LLP, that included previous investors IVP, Learn Capital, Maveron, Rethink Education, WTI and others.

Founded in 2011, General Assembly describes itself a global educational institution that is building a community of individuals empowered to pursue work they love through instruction and opportunity in technology, business, and design.

Originally started in New York City as a way to provide development opportunities to those working in the local startup space, the company offers a variety of full-time immersive programs, long-form courses, and classes and workshops that are said to offer the most “relevant skills of the 21st century – from web development and user experience design, to business fundamentals, to data science, to product management and digital marketing,” pretty much covering the gauntlet of skills need to found, run, or even work for a startup or established tech firm.

Figures for the four-year-old company are impressive: from one place in New York they now have nine locations in North America, as well as London, U.K., Singapore, Hong Kong, and both Sydney and Melbourne in Australia; student numbers naturally represent the expansion of the locations with General Assembly having assisted 240,000 people gain new skills.

The company currently offers a total of 12 different courses notes The Wall Street Journal and expects 15,000 students to go through the courses this year.

The company plans on using the new round to further expand their current offerings and to further tap into the growing opportunities surrounding re-education of refugees from legacy industries who are seeking entry into the new economy.

“We still see ourselves as being at the very start of a long journey,” Co-Founder Jake Schwartz said in a statement on the GA Blog. Our tasks include making many more inroads to increase the accessibility of our programs, and expanding the reach of what our model can do when applied to different sectors of the larger economy.”

Different

One thing that probably stands out with General Assembly is that, unlike competitors such as Codecademy and Udemy, the company offers offline courses as well as online courses, a traditional take for a company that is aiming at delivering skills in the information age.

That said, their numbers speak for themselves, and there is still room for in-person educational options if those options are tweaked for a 21st century, digital age delivery.

Including the new round General Assembly has raised $119.5 million to-date.

Image credit: General Assembly.

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