LatAm List – Platzi, an online education platform founded by Guatemalan Christian Van Der Henst and Colombian John Freddy Vega, raised $6M in a Series A round led by Foundation Capital. The EdTech startup offers live-stream classes in Spanish and Portugese for courses including programming, marketing, design, and business.
This round of investment, which marks a total raised of $8.3M to date, will introduce more classes to the platform, focusing on classes in Portugese to facilitate the platform’s expansion throughout Brazil.
Rodolfo Gonzalez, Partner at Foundation Capital, has been following Platzi since the startup graduated from Y Combinator’s accelerator. He stated that the platform has the potential to become a name brand for Spanish-speaking workers seeking to train themselves for more technical and higher paying roles.
“Anything that can prepare them for the digital economy, that is the best investment they can make,” said Gonzalez.
Platzi has one million students to date and boasts course completion rates of 50-70%. The platform has over 300 courses which are updated on a monthly basis, 117 full-time employees, and accepts payments from 20 different currencies.
A report from McKinsey estimates that 40-50% of Latin American employers say most entry-level job vacancies are due to candidates’ lack of skills.
“Right now Latin America is super hot and the need for talent is amazing,” said Vega. “We’re training the next generation.”
Read more on EdSurge.
Learn more about Platzi on this podcast episode and other articles on LatAm List:
Platzi will expand into Brazil and Spain in 2019
Platzi recognized as the best edtech platform in the world
