Short answers, pulled from the story.
Coursera was founded in 2012 by Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, both computer science professors at Stanford University. The two had begun posting their Stanford courses online in fall 2011 before leaving the university to launch the company.
Coursera priced its initial public offering at $33 per share on the 31st of March 2021, valuing the company at approximately $4.3 billion. The IPO aimed to raise about $519 million and included around 14.7 million shares of common stock.
Coursera removed free course auditing after Greg Hart became CEO in February 2025, shifting toward short-term profitability. The new model replaced the free audit option with a limited preview of only the first course module, with the rest locked behind a paywall starting at $49 per month.
As of 2024, Coursera offered approximately 7,000 courses through more than 375 universities and companies. Partners span more than 29 countries and include institutions such as Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Yonsei University in South Korea, and the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.
Coursera has never recorded a profit. The company lost $66.8 million in 2020 and continued to report net losses through 2025, though its second-quarter 2025 results surpassed analyst expectations with a loss of $0.03 per share against a forecast of $0.06.
The most popular course launched on Coursera in 2020 was "Science Matters: Let's Talk About COVID-19," developed by the Jameel Institute at Imperial College London. It enrolled more than 130,000 learners and was presented by Professor Helen Ward and Dr. Katharina Hauck.