The e-learning craze has been taking off, and the word ‘MooC’ – Massive Open Online Classes – has become ubiquitous with eduTech, and today MooC’s are getting a boost as 360Learning announces it has raised €1.2 Million from 3T Capital & ISAI for its enterprise MooC platform. The announcement, originally picked up by JournalDuNet, comes at a time where everyone is looking to monetize the e-learning revolution – 360Learning is no different – however, they may just have the right idea.
Deal #9 for #ISAI venture fund: welcome @360Learning !
— Pierre Martini (@MartiniPierre) October 1, 2013
360Learning offers a platform for enterprises which allows them to create & manage courses for their employees, used often in cooperation with other tools in what’s called “blended learning.” While the platform represents a huge opportunity for enterprise, it was only last month that Google announced that it will team up with EdX, Harvard’s dedicated MooC platform, to build an open-source MooC platform. While the project release date has not been confirmed, this may put pressure on 360Learning to begin taking mindshare. Nevertheless, Google has had many ‘projects’ that never see the light of day or don’t get the attention they deserve, so the more-than-realistic “what if Google builds what you’re building?” question seems less relevant than it was before.
Congratulations to 360Learning for raising €1.2 Million from 3T Capital & #ISAI for their MooC enterprise software & e-learning platform!
— Rude Baguette (@RudeBaguette) October 1, 2013
As e-learning becomes more real to the French startup community, I think we’ll continue to see more edutech startups pushing into this space. VideoNotes/Unishared has been doing so for quite some time, though it seems founder Clement Delangue has joined Mention in the recent months, perhaps marking a slow-down in Unishared’s development.