{"id":336966,"date":"2017-03-28T22:00:07","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T14:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1469549"},"modified":"2017-03-28T22:00:07","modified_gmt":"2017-03-28T14:00:07","slug":"masterclass-raises-35-million-for-celebrity-taught-classes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/masterclass-raises-35-million-for-celebrity-taught-classes\/","title":{"rendered":"MasterClass raises $35 million for celebrity taught classes"},"content":{"rendered":"

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If you want to learn something new, learn it from\u00a0the master. That\u2019s the thesis behind MasterClass, which offers\u00a0tennis tips\u00a0from Serena Williams, cooking advice from Gordon Ramsay and vocal training from Christina Aguilera.<\/p>\n

The startup offers online courses from leaders in their field, charging about $90 for the hours long sessions. Students also have access to the community\u00a0and instructor Q&As.<\/p>\n

Venture capitalists are betting that this will become a big business, with IVP leading a $35 million Series C round. New investors Sam Lessin and GSV Acceleration joined, with NEA, Bloomberg Beta and others participating again.<\/p>\n

MasterClass is \u201cbuilding a\u00a0modern day Library of Alexandria,\u201d said Eric Liaw, general partner at IVP, who will be joining the board. \u201cShakespeare couldn\u2019t teach playwriting in his own words,\u201d or at least there wasn\u2019t a video recording of it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

David Rogier, co-founder and CEO says they want to add more classes and hire more employees at their offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles. They are hoping to\u00a0expand beyond arts and add a \u201cbusiness\u201d category for tutorials from world-class entrepreneurs and visionaries. \u201cImagine if Steve Jobs had a class,\u201d said Rogier.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They work with the \u201cmasters\u201d to\u00a0produce the video and develop the program. They also have a revenue share arrangement with the instructors.<\/p>\n

Rogier wouldn\u2019t share how many people use the service, but mentioned that they are distributed across all income levels, education levels and geographies.<\/p>\n

For \u201cup\u00a0to 80% of our students this is their first ever online class,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are trying to set a brand new bar of what online education is.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" If you want to learn something new, learn it from\u00a0the master. That’s the thesis behind MasterClass, which offers\u00a0tennis tips\u00a0from Serena Williams, cooking advice from Gordon Ramsay and vocal training from Christina Aguilera.
\nThe startup offers online courses from leaders in their field, charging about $90 for the hours long sessions. Students also have access to the community\u00a0and… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-336966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}