Leading online learning company lynda.com, Inc. today announced an investment of $186 million led by TPG, a global private investment firm with $65 billion of assets under management. Accel Partners, Spectrum Equity and Meritech, existing lynda.com investors, also participated in the round. The financing will be used to accelerate acquisitions, growth and new content initiatives, and to continue to build the world-class team that supports those efforts.
As the leader in online learning, lynda.com is committed to providing its members with up-to-date content covering business, creative and technical skills delivered by experts who are passionate about their fields. With this investment, the company plans to further increase its sizable library of more than 5,700 courses and 255,000 video tutorials (inclusive of English, French, German and Spanish content). It also plans to further grow its customer base -- already comprised of half of the Fortune 50, 30 percent of the nation's colleges and universities (including all of the Ivy League), numerous state governments and all branches of the U.S. military -- both in the U.S. and internationally.
With the investment, David Trujillo of TPG will join the board, which also includes Lynda Weinman, co-founder and Executive Chair; Bruce Heavin, co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer; Eric Robison, CEO; Bud Colligan, Founder and CEO of South Swell Ventures; Vic Parker, Managing Director of Spectrum Equity; and Andrew Braccia, Partner at Accel Partners.
'This investment is a tremendous vote of confidence in lynda.com's ability to empower more people everywhere to learn the skills they need to succeed,' said Eric Robison, CEO of lynda.com. 'We are thrilled also to have David Trujillo join our board and look forward to drawing on his operational expertise to build on the success of lynda.com and to help grow the company.'
'lynda.com has built a leading subscription-based internet learning platform offering professional software, creative, and business training that attracts both corporate and individual customers,' said David Trujillo. 'We are excited to partner with the lynda.com team to help the company continue gaining market share in a fragmented industry with long-term macro tailwinds. TPG looks forward to leveraging its operational experience with disruptive and innovative internet companies as the company expands its enterprise business and reshapes continuing education.'
'Through the years, millions of people have used lynda.com to reach their goals -- launching businesses, changing careers, landing their dream jobs or simply learning something new,' said Lynda Weinman, co-founder and Executive Chair of lynda.com. 'We've built a thriving business by staying true to our mission and look forward to empowering more learners in more corners of the world.'
Allen & Co served as financial adviser to lynda.com.
About lynda.com
lynda.com is a leading online learning company that helps anyone learn business, technology and creative skills to achieve personal and professional goals. Through individual, government, corporate and academic subscriptions, members have access to the lynda.com video library of engaging, top-quality courses taught by recognized industry experts. The company also provides German-, French- and Spanish-language content under the video2brain brand name. lynda.com, Inc. was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Carpinteria, California with offices in San Francisco, Calabasas, London, Sydney and Graz.
About TPG
TPG is a leading global private investment firm founded in 1992 with $65 billion of assets under management and offices in San Francisco, Fort Worth, Austin, Dallas, Houston, New York, Beijing, Hong Kong, London, Luxembourg, Melbourne, Moscow, Mumbai, São Paulo, Shanghai, Singapore and Tokyo. TPG has extensive experience with global public and private investments executed through leveraged buyouts, recapitalizations, spinouts, growth investments, joint ventures and restructurings. The firm has deep expertise in internet, education and media sectors including investments in leading companies Uber, Airbnb, CAA (Creative Artists Agency), RentPath, TES Connect, SurveyMonkey and Univision. For more information visit www.tpg.com.
About Accel Partners
Accel Partners is a leading early and growth-stage venture capital firm, powering a global community of entrepreneurs. Accel backs entrepreneurs who have what it takes to build a world-class, category-defining business. Founded in 1983, Accel brings more than three decades of experience building and supporting hundreds of companies. Accel's vision for entrepreneurship and business enables it to identify and invest in the companies that will be responsible for the growth of next-generation industries. Accel-backed companies include Atlassian, Braintree, Cloudera, Dropbox, Dropcam, Etsy Facebook, Flipkart, MoPub, Qualtrics, Rovio, Slack, Spotify, Squarspace, Trulia, Vox Media, VSCO, 99 Designs and others.
About Spectrum Equity
Founded in 1994 with offices in Boston and San Francisco, Spectrum is a leading growth equity firm that provides capital and strategic support to its portfolio companies. Spectrum has invested in over 120 companies in the last 20 years -- representative investments include Ancestry.com, BATS, GrubHub, Lynda.com, Passport Health, RiskMetrics Group, SurveyMonkey and World-Check. For more information about Spectrum, including a complete list of investments, visit www.spectrumequity.com.
About Meritech Capital Partners
Meritech Capital Partners is a leading provider of late-stage venture capital to category-defining private technology companies, and has been one of the top performing venture firms of the past decade. With over $3 billion under management, Meritech primarily leads investments into companies with proven and differentiated technology, rapidly-growing revenue and experienced management teams. With one of the most active venture portfolios in Silicon Valley, Meritech has experience in, and provides guidance on issues facing rapidly growing companies including management incentive plans, IPO market timing and positioning, M&A strategies and negotiations and adviser selection. Meritech investments in industry-leading companies include Acclarent, Cornerstone-OnDemand, Facebook, Fortinet, Fusion-io, Greenplum, Hybris, Imperva, Netezza, NetSuite, Proofpoint, PopCap, Riverbed, Salesforce.com, Sourcefire, Tableau and Zulily. Meritech is located in Palo Alto, CA and can be found at www.meritechcapital.com.