Last month, I predicted that Coursera would “announce a huge round of funding with a high valuation sometime this year (maybe even in the next few weeks).”

Last week, The Information broke the news that Coursera has raised $130 million in a Series F funding round at a $2.5 Billion valuation. Last year, the company had raised $103 million, reaching a $1 billion valuation and achieving so-called “unicorn” status.

In total, the company has raised $464 million. According to Coursera, the latest funding round brings to the company’s cash balance — that is, the amount of money the company has on hand — to $300 million.

This suggests that Coursera didn’t need the money but used the favorable conditions to raise funds and more than double their valuation. The pandemic has increased interest in online education: MOOC providers have grown drastically and Class Central’s traffic has surged.

In the last 30 days, Class Central received more traffic than we did in 2019. These users were also more engaged.

One number in particular stands out to me – clicks to the provider (Go To Class button clicks on our course pages). They increased significantly, 4.4m vs 2.5m. pic.twitter.com/UGvcaBcEFj

— Dhawal Shah @[email protected] (@dhawalhshah) April 20, 2020

You can read more about the pandemic’s impact on online education here.

Of all online education providers, Coursera is the one that has grown the most during the pandemic. Since March 15, the company has signed up 15 million new users, twice as many as in 2019.

Even before the pandemic, the company expected to cross $200 million in revenue in 2020.

During the pandemic, the company offered free certificates for certain courses and made its catalog free for all college students. To learn more about how Coursera and other MOOC providers have responded to the pandemic, read Class Central’s report on the topic.