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'I'm grateful, but...': Udemy co-founder Gagan Biyani on $2.5 billion Coursera merger
Coursera and Udemy announced a merger last year, valued at approximately $2.5 billion in an all-stock transaction. The deal is awaiting regulatory approvals.
Udemy co-founder Gagan Biyani has publicly criticised the company’s planned merger with Coursera, calling the $2.5 billion deal disappointing and reflective of deeper structural issues within the edtech firm. Notably, Coursera and Udemy announced a merger in December 2025, valued at approximately $2.5 billion in an all-stock transaction. The deal is currently awaiting regulatory approvals.
In a detailed post on X, Biyani said he felt “kinda pissed” about the acquisition, despite acknowledging that Udemy had been life-changing for him. “I’m grateful for the opportunity to start and benefit from Udemy’s success. It changed my life. But there’s another side to Udemy. A story of what could have been,” he wrote.
Biyani attributed Udemy’s trajectory to early decisions that diluted founder control. He said that after the company’s Series B funding round, founders owned less than 30%, allowing investors to take charge and install their own CEO. While the move initially appeared successful, he claimed it led to long-term stagnation.
“Over Udemy’s history, there have been 7 CEO’s. The board replaced the second CEO with dud after dud. I’d often try to meet with the board or the new CEO, and was completely ignored,” Biyani said. He alleged that he and fellow co-founders were not even invited to the company’s IPO - a moment he said highlighted the lack of respect for founders and product innovation.
Further, Biyani said that despite achieving scale, including building a $500 million ARR business and eventually going public at a $3 billion valuation, the company failed to evolve. “The company made no major product innovations for 15 years,” he said, adding that Udemy relied heavily on its original model of video-based courses while expanding distribution.
Udemy vs Coursera
He also contrasted Udemy’s journey with Coursera’s, noting that while Coursera initially had an inferior product, it outperformed Udemy in perception and innovation. “Coursera innovated heavily. They added corporate courses to their university catalog, built fully-online degree programs, and offered a B2B competitor that kept Udemy on its toes. Still, the Udemy B2B business (and team) out-performed and so the two companies were deadlocked. Coursera was better at B2C, Udemy at B2B,” he said.
Biyani admitted that the merger was inevitable but questioned why the combined entity is valued at under $3 billion. He pointed at three factors: edtech’s failure to meet its growth promise, both companies selling products their customers do not love, and the long-term cost of sidelining founders. “By ignoring the founders, Udemy failed to innovate, which led to slowing growth which led to mediocre public market results. Furthermore, they don’t have a good evangelist and public markets don’t like a headless horse,” he wrote.
Biyani, who said he has already sold his Udemy stake, concluded by stressing the need for reinvention. He urged the combined entity to focus on innovation, particularly in enterprise learning and AI-led education tools. “On B2B, Coursera needs to help L&D become the heroes of the AI era so the entire market starts growing again. On B2C, they need to build the most educational AI product on the planet. (I’d focus on the former, since the latter is a lot harder and riskier),” he said.
“The current education system sucks and the world deserves something better,” he added, expressing hope that Coursera can still build a $10 billion company and revive the original vision.
