Simplilearn Raises $15M For Professional Training And Certification

Simplilearn, a company helping customers get certified in areas like PMP (project management) and Android development, has raised $15 million in Series C funding.

The company offers courses both online and in classroom workshops. It says there are more than 200 courses and 40 accreditations — since launching in 2010, more than 400,000 people have been certified through Simplilearn courses.

CEO Krisha Kumar said the most popular courses include big data and analytics, digital marketing, project management, and various web programming languages.

But there’s certainly plenty of competition in online education, and even within professional training, we’ve covered several different approaches — for example, I recently wrote about Grovo, which creates short training videos. Simplilearn stands out because of its focuses on “short-term certification courses that have direct impact on career growth,” Kumar said.

Goals for 2015 including training 1 million new users and doubling the course catalogue, he added.

Simplilearn has now raised a total of $27 million. The new round was led by Mayfield Fund, with participation from past investors Kalaari Capital and Helion Venture Partners.

“Simplilearn has had an impressive growth over the last few years, and we are confident that this momentum will continue as more individuals seek professional certification(s) to succeed,” said Mayfield managing director Navin Chaddha in the funding release. “We believe that the additional capital will allow Krishna and his team to grow even faster and outpace the market.”