FutureLearn announces SEEK as new 50/50 shareholders alongside The Open University
We’re delighted to announce a new shareholder today. SEEK, Australia’s top employment marketplace, is joining The Open University as 50/50 shareholders in FutureLearn.
We’re delighted to announce a new shareholder today. SEEK, Australia’s top employment marketplace, is joining The Open University as 50/50 shareholders in FutureLearn. Our existing relationship with The Open University and its vision for the higher education sector has, and will continue to have, a huge impact on and benefit to FutureLearn.
This is big news for us but before we get into the details, we want to say thank you – you, our learners are incredibly important to us and we simply wouldn’t be the company we are today without you, so thank you. And now for those details…
SEEK is Australia’s top employment marketplace. The SEEK Group operates in almost 20 countries, with access to almost 200m jobseekers and almost one million hirers from organisations and recruitment agencies. You can watch a quick video about the group.
For FutureLearn, SEEK adds experience and expertise in the employment sector, a good fit for the education sector as more people look for a return on the time and money they invest in learning.
But there’s no change to our purpose of transforming access to education on a global scale. SEEK are investing in FutureLearn and its business strategy so you’ll keep seeing the FutureLearn you know, it’s not going anywhere.
It really is still business as usual for us. We will still be offering access to courses for free but the investment means we can do more, more quickly.
For example, we’ll continue to invest to ensure our platform remains extremely user-friendly and enjoyable to use on mobile, desktop and tablet. We’ll also remain focused on the courses we bring you so look out for more courses in terms of new subject areas, more degrees, and bite-sized stackable courses for learners keen to develop a particular skill for the workplace.
We’re delighted to be receiving this investment, obviously, but we’re really excited to be receiving it from a company like SEEK who understands and believes in our business and what we can achieve together. They are also a really good match to both us and our founding shareholder, The Open University, in their stated purpose to help people live more fulfilling and productive working lives and help organisations. You can watch how they bring their purpose to life.
They’re a great new investor for us and we can’t wait to start working with them. We hope you’re as excited as we all are for the future.
Simon Nelson
Update: 3pm, May 2 2019. Thank you for all your questions. Comments are now closed, but you can read Simon’s response to your main questions in our CEO update.
