Netology, a major Russian online education platform offering courses in the fields of Internet business, web development and e-commerce, has merged with Foxford (previously 100EGE.ru), a provider of online courses for secondary school students, under the “Netology Group” brand.
The merged companies have received a $1.1million capital injection from InVenture Partners, a Russian fund that had already acquired a minority stake in Netology earlier this year. The deal values the joint venture at $14.1 million, up from $5.6 million for Netology alone in the previous round.
The cash will be used “to promote existing services, develop new courses and training programs, and to improve the technology platform,” the companies stated.
The new group claims it provides “a unique model of the full online education cycle in Russia.” Foxford services address the needs of secondary school students and prepare them for university admissions, while the Netology platform helps students gain practical skills and make a career.
The Netology Group is thus positioning itself as “one of the biggest players on the Russian online education market.”
“Netology has significant expertise in the marketing and promotion of educational products. Foxford has a strong technology platform. These and other competences perfectly complement each other. As a result, the joint company can reach both children and adults, while working with B2C, B2B and B2G segments simultaneously. Moreover, the deal helped to increase the scale of the company, which currently employs more than 100 people,” underlined Netology co-founder Maxim Spiridonov, who will head the new group.
The group is forecasting revenues of approximately 120 million rubles (more than $3 million) this year, and expects revenues to triple in 2015.
Several domestic players with different focuses
Several major online business education platforms have been launched in Russia over the past year. However, these have not focused on the same areas or targets and do not offer the same tools, observed Netology COO Julia Zavyalova in an exchange with East-West Digital News.
Among these platforms is Eduson.tv, which launched in the spring of 2013 with $1 million in funding. With its courses offered in several languages, however, Eduson is more internationally oriented than Netology, which targets exclusively Russian-speaking users.
Besmart.net allows the uploading and review of its educational and informative content. The company received a funding commitment of $4 million from the Hong-Kong based fund Education Matrix.
Another platform, Zillion.net, is backed by VTB24, a leading Russian bank. It offers webinars and online courses in marketing, sales, finance and management.
InVenture Partners, founded in 2012 by Sergey Azatyan and Anton Inshutin, targets consumer technologies, financial and telecom products, online marketing and ads, tourism and corporate services. Its portfolio currently includes the taxi booking service GetTaxi, virtual mobile network Fogg, travel agency OnlineTours, online ad agency GetGoing, and mobile payments service 2Can.
- A research partner of East-West Digital News, Netology has contributed to EWDN’s study on Russian e-commerce.
