Pluralsight

Pluralsight, Inc.
Public
Traded as NASDAQ: PS
Industry Software as a service
Founded 2004 (2004)
Founder
  • Aaron Skonnard
  • Keith Brown
  • Fritz Onion
  • Bill Williams
Headquarters Farmington, Utah, US
Key people
 Aaron Skonnard (CEO)
Products Technology learning platform
Website www.pluralsight.com
Pluralsight Headquarters, Farmington, Utah

Pluralsight is a publicly held online education company that offers a variety of video training courses for software developers, IT administrators, and creative professionals through its website.[1] Founded in 2004 by Aaron Skonnard (current CEO), Keith Brown, Fritz Onion, and Bill Williams,[2] the company has its headquarters in Farmington, Utah. As of November 2017, it uses more than 1,500 subject-matter experts as authors,[3] and offers more than 6,000 courses in its catalog.[4][5] Since first moving its courses online in 2007, the company has expanded, developing a full enterprise platform, and adding skills assessment modules.[6]

History

Pluralsight was founded in 2004 as a classroom training company that involved sending an instructor to a business or training event. By 2007, the company shifted its emphasis to online video training.[2]

Since 2011, the company has seen rapid growth. It has been named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing private companies, ranking as the #9 Top Education company and the #19 Top Utah company.[7] In October 2017, Pluralsight was named #29 on MountainWest Capital Network's Utah 100 list.[8] In 2017, it was named a 2017 Best Workplaces in the medium-sized company category by Great Place to Work.[9] The same year, it ranked #20 on the Forbes Cloud 100 list.[10]

In April 2018, Pluralsight filed for an initial public offering.[11]

Business model

Through a subscription business model, Pluralsight provides online professional tech training to individual and business customers.[5] The company pays its course authors a royalty, based on how often their videos are viewed. In 2013, author Scott Allen became the first of its authors to earn over $1 million in royalties from his courses.[12]

The company also offers a complete SaaS platform for its enterprise users.[13] CEO Aaron Skonnard has stated that roughly 40% of Fortune 500 companies have a Pluralsight enterprise license.[14][6]

In 2017, the company announced its participation in the Pledge 1% movement—a global initiative to encourage corporate philanthropy by asking companies to commit 1% of their efforts towards nonprofit organizations. The company launched Pluralsight One in September, 2017, with the goal of improving technology education in the nonprofit sector.[15]

Venture funding

When Pluralsight first started, all four of its founders contributed $5,000 each. For the first nine years, the company and its founders received no outside funding.[16] As of March 2015, the company has received US$169 million in venture funding.[17]

In December 2012, the company raised $27.5 million in Series A funding from Insight Venture Partners.[2] On March 18, 2014 it received an additional $2.5 million in Series A Funding.[18] On August 27, 2014, it received $135 million in Series B funding from Insight Venture Partners, Iconiq Capital, and Sorenson Capital—reported at the time to be the largest venture funding round ever received by a Utah company.[19] Co-founder and CEO Aaron Skonnard stated that after this round of funding, the company's valuation had increased from less than $100 million in 2012 to nearly $1 billion.[20]

In December 2016, the company raised an additional $30 million in a Series C round[21] that valued the company over $1 billion.[22] The round included funding from existing investors Insight Venture Partners and Iconiq Capital.[23]

Acquisitions

For most of its history, Pluralsight grew its author base and course catalog from within. Starting in 2013, it has acquired a number of e-learning and education companies to bolster its technology, course offerings, and executive leadership.

On July 24, 2013, it acquired PeepCode, a provider of Open Source training to developers, for an undisclosed amount. This added about 100 new courses in the Open Source category to Pluralsight's course catalog, expanding it beyond its traditional realm of offerings focused mainly on developers who worked on Microsoft technologies.[24][25]

On August 5, 2013, it acquired Chicago-based TrainSignal, a company providing training for Information technology personnel, for $23.6 million. It absorbed 35 TrainSignal employees, and maintained its office in Chicago as a satellite.[26][27]

On October 31, 2013, Pluralsight acquired Tekpub, producer of a series of screencasts on new development technologies, for an undisclosed amount. Co-founder Rob Conery joined Pluralsight, and continues to produce training videos under its brand. Other high-profile authors from Tekpub, including Jon Skeet and Scott Hanselman, also became Pluralsight authors.[28]

On April 9, 2014, Pluralsight announced it acquired Digital-Tutors, a company providing training for creative professionals, for $45 million. This acquisition expanded the company's training catalog to more than 3000 titles, broadening its topic coverage to media and design. Approximately 30 employees from Digital-Tutors joined Pluralsight. Pluralsight maintained the former Digital-Tutors headquarters in Oklahoma City as a satellite office.[29]

On November 19, 2014, Pluralsight announced it had acquired Smarterer, an online skills assessment platform, for $75 million. Based in Boston, Smarterer was founded in 2010 and was backed by Google Ventures, among others.[30] Smarterer founder and CEO Dave Balter stated that his entire 18-person staff would remain with the company.[31]

On January 26, 2015, Pluralsight announced its acquisition of Orlando-based Code School, an online training site offering video courses and exercise-based lessons related to entry-level and intermediate coding and programming.[32] It was reported that the acquisition was for $36 million. Code School's office, and its team of 39 full-time employees, remain open in Orlando.[33]

On July 9, 2015, Pluralsight announced its acquisition of HackHands for an undisclosed amount.[34] Founded in 2013, San Francisco-based HackHands provides on-demand live assistance for technology learners via video and audio chat, instant messaging, and screen sharing. The HackHands acquisition marked Pluralsight's seventh deal in less than two years.[35]

On July 19, 2016, Pluralsight announced it had acquired Train Simple,[36][37] a video training company with a focus on Adobe software.[38]

Partnerships and community involvement

In October 2012, Microsoft and Pluralsight announced a partnership making Pluralsight courses available to MSDN subscribers and through its DreamSpark, BizSpark, WebsiteSpark, and Engineer Excellence programs.[2][39] The customized "Pluralsight Starter Subscription" consisted of several Visual Studio 2012 courses. In November 2014, the two companies partnered again, giving MSDN subscribers a 12-month access to a selection of Pluralsight's courses.[40]

In May 2013, Pluralsight launched a free programming coding bootcamp for kids ages 10 and up to help teach coding in school.[41]

In 2014, Pluralsight partnered with the state of Utah's Office of Economic Development to offer Utah K-12 teachers a free one-year subscription to their training library. Utah Governor Gary Herbert valued the donation between $5 million and $10 million.[42][43][44]

Pluralsight also partnered with LaunchCode in November 2014 to help candidates secure jobs in technology by offering one year of free access to the Pluralsight course library.[45] In December 2014, the company supported the "Hour of Code" movement by hosting an hour of code for a week. More than 200 students across the state participated.[46]

In 2017, Pluralsight announced partnerships with Microsoft,[47] Adobe,[48] and Oracle,[49] to expand their offerings and course availability.

In September, 2017, during a panel discussion with Ivanka Trump about increasing access to STEM-related programs in public schools, Pluralsight pledged $10 million as part of a private-sector contribution reaching over $300 million. Other participants include Amazon, Google, General Motors, and Facebook.[50]

In 2017, Google announced, in association with Pluralsight, 100,000 scholarships to help developers gain access to advanced learning curriculum in emerging technologies, including mobile and web development, machine learning, artificial intelligence and cloud platforms in India.[51]

References

  1. ↑ "Pluralsight LLC: Private Company Information - Businessweek". Businessweek. Retrieved 2014-09-12.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Perez, Sarah. "Developer Training Platform Pluralsight Raises $27.5 Million From Insight Venture Partners To Expand Its Online Catalog - TechCrunch". TechCrunch.
  3. ↑ "About us | Pluralsight". www.pluralsight.com. Retrieved 2017-11-03.
  4. ↑ "Expert-led online training | Pluralsight". www.pluralsight.com. Retrieved 2017-11-03.
  5. 1 2 Karol, Gabrielle. "Pluralsight Raises $135M to Help Grow Enterprise Customer Base - Fox Small Business Center". Fox Business Network.
  6. 1 2 Bonasio, Alice. "How doing good can help CIOs do better". CIO. Retrieved 2017-10-20.
  7. ↑ "Pluralsight - Layton, Ut". Inc. Retrieved 2014-09-12.
  8. ↑ "Utah 100". Mountain West Capital Network. Retrieved 2017-10-13.
  9. ↑ "Best Medium Workplaces 2017". Great Place To Work United States. Retrieved 2017-11-06.
  10. ↑ "Cloud 100". Forbes. Retrieved 2017-11-06.
  11. ↑ Peterson, Becky (2018-04-02). "Pluralsight, an online learning startup for coders, has confidentially filed for an IPO". Business Insider. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  12. ↑ Lacy, Sarah (2013-07-08). "Lessons from the first millionaire online teacher". PandoDaily.
  13. ↑ Carey, Scott. "How Pluralsight's SaaS Training Platform Plans To Close The Skills Gap". ComputerworldUK. Retrieved 2017-10-20.
  14. ↑ Lopez, Maribel. "Online Education: A New Weapon In Your Digital Transformation Arsenal". Forbes. Retrieved 2017-10-20.
  15. ↑ "Introducing Pluralsight One: Our commitment to closing the technology skills gap". www.pluralsight.com. Retrieved 2017-11-03.
  16. ↑ Rawle, Christopher (2015-02-04). "The Rise of Pluralsight". Beehive Startups.
  17. ↑ "Pluralsight - CrunchBase". CrunchBase.
  18. ↑ "Mar 18, 2014: Pluralsight - Funding Round - Series A - CrunchBase". Retrieved 2014-09-12.
  19. ↑ Kolodny, Lora (2014-08-27). "E-learning Co. Pluralsight Raises $135M in Record Round for Utah". The Wall Street Journal.
  20. ↑ Kim, Eugene. "Pluralsight Is Worth Almost A Billion Dollars - Business Insider". Business Insider.
  21. ↑ "Series C - Pluralsight - 2016-12-12 | Crunchbase". Crunchbase. Retrieved 2017-10-20.
  22. ↑ Levy, Ari (2016-12-12). "Riding Salesforce and Amazon's cloud to $1 billion". CNBC. Retrieved 2017-10-20.
  23. ↑ "En Route to IPO, Pluralsight Raises Additional $30 Million - EdSurge News". EdSurge. 2016-12-13. Retrieved 2017-10-20.
  24. ↑ Perez, Sarah. "Developer Training Platform Pluralsight Acquires PeepCode To Expand Into Open-Source Content - TechCrunch". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2014-09-12.
  25. ↑ "Learn-to-code company Pluralsight acquires 2 competitors for $23M". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2014-11-26.
  26. ↑ Carr, David (2013-08-05). "Pluralsight Buys TrainSignal, Broadens IT Training Lineup". InformationWeek.
  27. ↑ Lowe, Scott. "TrainSignal Acquired By Pluralsight in $23.6 Million Deal - SiliconANGLE". Silicon Angle. Retrieved 2014-09-12.
  28. ↑ DeAmicis, Carmel (2013-10-30). "Developers are becoming jacks of all trades". PandoDaily. Retrieved 2014-11-21.
  29. ↑ Shieber, Jonathan (2014-04-09). "PluralSight Buys Digital-Tutors For $45 Million To Add Media Software Training". TechCrunch.
  30. ↑ Castellanos, Sara (2014-11-19). "Skills test software startup Smarterer acquired for $75M". The Business Journals.
  31. ↑ Balter, Dave (2014-11-20). "I Sold My Google-Backed Startup for $75 Million Yesterday--and I'm Scared to Death". Inc.
  32. ↑ O'Connell, Ainsley (2015-01-27). "Pluralsight Continues Its Acquisition Spree, Dropping $36 Million On Code School". Fast Company.
  33. ↑ Perez, Sarah (2015-01-26). "Online Learning Service Pluralsight Acquires Code School For $36 Million". Tech Crunch.
  34. ↑ Kokalitcheva, Kia. "This company is adding on-demand help to win the online education race". Fortune. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
  35. ↑ Weber, Harrison. "Pluralsight snaps up HackHands to offer budding coders real-time support". VentureBeat. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
  36. ↑ Haggin, Patience (2016-07-19). "Ed-Tech Startup Pluralsight Acquires Train Simple, Latest in Buying Spree". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2017-10-20.
  37. ↑ "Pluralsight acquires Train Simple - 2016-07-19 | Crunchbase". Crunchbase. Retrieved 2017-10-20.
  38. ↑ "Pluralsight's Eighth Acquisition in 3 Years, Train Simple, Focuses on Adobe Software - EdSurge News". EdSurge. 2016-07-19. Retrieved 2017-10-20.
  39. ↑ Harry, Brian (2012-10-11). "MSDN subscribers worldwide get Pluralsight Starter Subscription - Brian Harry's blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs". MSDN.
  40. ↑ Askilsrud, Cathrine (2014-11-12). "New MSDN e-learning Benefit: Pluralsight Training". Channel 9.
  41. ↑ Carney, Michael (2013-05-09). "Pluralsight turns philanthropic, launches free coding bootcamp in Utah public schools". PandoDaily.
  42. ↑ "Get A+ Skills With A Free Year Of Online Education". State of Utah.
  43. ↑ Metcalf, Dan. "The Davis Clipper - Pluralsight a tech business magnet for Davis County". The Davis Clipper. Retrieved 2014-09-12.
  44. ↑ "Pluralsight Opens New Headquarters, Launches GOED Initiative". 2014-08-04. Archived from the original on 2014-12-30.
  45. ↑ Gallagher, Jim (2014-11-07). "Pluralsight teams with LaunchCode". St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
  46. ↑ Mills, Glen (2014-12-08). "Governor Herbert teams up with high tech industry to develop the next generation". Good4Utah.com.
  47. ↑ "Microsoft Partners with Pluralsight to Bring Technology Learning Platform to Visual Studio - WinBuzzer". WinBuzzer. 2017-03-08. Retrieved 2017-10-20.
  48. ↑ ANI (2017-05-11). "Pluralsight launches new courses for Adobe Marketing, Analytics Cloud". Business Standard India. Retrieved 2017-10-20.
  49. ↑ Rowe, Sam Del (2017-03-01). "Oracle and Pluralsight Announce Partnership". CRM Magazine. Retrieved 2017-10-20.
  50. ↑ "Businesses Give $300M Toward K-12 Computer Science Education". www.voanews.com. Retrieved 2017-11-06.
  51. ↑ "Google Reskilling India Program | Pluralsight". help.pluralsight.com. Retrieved 2018-09-06.
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