CreativeLive, which offers streamed classes taught by experts from a variety of disciplines, has landed a new $25 million funding round.
The latest round brings the company’s total funding to $58.8 million since it was founded in 2010. GSV Acceleration led the round, and it was joined by two other new investors: REV Venture Partners and actor, director and Thirty Seconds to Mars frontman Jared Leto. Existing investors Greylock Partners, Social Capital, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson and Creative Artists Agency also participated in the round.
CreativeLive, which has offices in San Francisco and Seattle, said it will use the cash infusion to refine and improve its products, including its live and on-demand video platform. CreativeLive is also making a push to work with enterprises.
“The future favors people and companies that can create, innovate, and design the best products, services and experiences,” said Chase Jarvis, founder and CEO of CreativeLive. “Creative skills, design thinking and a growth mindset were once thought to be ‘nice to haves,’ whereas today we know that they are key attributes for success.”
Enterprise offerings aren’t totally new to CreativeLive, as the company is already working with Adobe, Microsoft, Red Bull and GoPro among others. Enterprises could use classes not only as a way to help employees learn new skills or sharpen their public speakings abilities, but also as a perk, for say, a software developer who has always wanted to get into photography. CreativeLive has also worked with enterprises to create custom content.
Jarvis predicted that the most successful brands over the next few years will be the ones that use learning and education to connect with customers and cultivate high-level employees. In the past, training was a big part of a job, but that trend has diminished, and the skill level of employee has become one of the most important factors in hiring.
“The future is not really about where you went to a four-year school,” Jarvis said. “The future of employment is what do you know, what have you built, and who did you work with, aka, who did you learn from?” Jarvis said.
Through its enterprise push, CreativeLive wants to bring back that trend of on-the-job training through access to its immense library of classes, which is growing every month.
CreativeLive says more than 10 million students have consumed more than 3 billion minutes of video through its online classes. In its history, CreativeLive has created 25,000 lessons in 1,500 classes totaling more than 10,000 hours of video. Many of the classes focus on creative disciplines like photography, video, music and others. But CreativeLive also has numerous classes focused on leadership, business, and making creative pursuits profitable.
In addition to CreativeLive’s classes, Jarvis has his own show, Chase Jarvis Live. Jarvis, a renowned photographer in his own right, said the shows are meant to inspire people all over the world. He brings in guests such as Mark Cuban, Leto, Branson, and most recently The Shins frontman James Mercer, and asks them about times they’ve hit a wall, and how they overcame struggles, so that someone else pursuing a dream can be motivated to stay on their path.
CreativeLive has more than 100 people between its Seattle and San Francisco offices. Jarvis wouldn’t give exact numbers, but he said a slightly larger portion of the headcount is in San Francisco, where many of the product and engineering teams are located. Seattle is home to much of the production staff.
