CPE News (3/24/2021) – Disco has closed an oversubscribed $4.75 million funding round led by Quiet Capital, Golden Ventures, inovia, and GSV (investors in Masterclass, Coursera) with participation of StandUp Ventures, GFC and a group of private investors.
Founded by Candice Faktor and Chris Sukornyk, Disco, a live learning “business in a box” platform for creators, is currently live and in closed beta.
Funds from this round will be used to bring the product to market and for hiring new team.
photo credit: Disco
News Release
Disco, the pioneering platform for creators to build live virtual learning experiences closes oversubscribed $4.75M round
The investors behind Masterclass and Coursera join top global funds and angels from Shopify, Lambda School, Wattpad, Indiegogo, Clearbanc, K5 (former CAA), and Endeavor
TORONTO, March 24, 2021 /CNW/ – Today Disco, a live learning, “business in a box” platform for creators closed an oversubscribed $4.75MM funding round led by Quiet Capital, Golden Ventures, inovia, and GSV (investors in Masterclass, Coursera).
“Disco realizes that edtech and all innovation happens at the edge, where creators live. We are excited to back this all-star team pioneering the future of creator-led live learning experiences.” Deborah Quazzo, GSV.
With remote work and zoom a verb, online learning is forever changed. Millions of people now want to learn live together. Disco is the Latin word for learn and was born to help creators effortlessly deliver a cohort-based live learning experience. Disco offers seamless branding, live video, group chat, and the ability to scale beyond a course into an ongoing learning community. Disco is the platform creators have been waiting for.
“To run cohort-based courses today is a mess,” says Dan Martell, SaaS Academy Coach. “You need to use about 7-10 different tools. Disco is solving a major pain point.”
Like Shopify, Disco is 100% creator aligned. “Disco reminds me a lot of what we did in commerce,” says Shopify angel Brandon Chu. “We empowered entrepreneurs to go direct to customers and disrupt traditional retail, just like Disco is enabling creators to disrupt traditional education.”
Influencers from the learning space, creator economy and community platforms are betting on Disco. This includes: Wattpad founder Ivan Yuen, Shopify’s Farhan Thanwar, Satish Kanwar, Arati Sharma, and Brandon Chu, Indiegogo’s Board Member Rob Goldman, Clearbanc and Dragon Den’s Michele Romanow, Lambda School’s Matt Wyndowe, Former Head Learning, Endeavor’s Tarun Sachdeva, former CAA agent K5’s Michael Kives among others.
The founders bring exceptionally complementary backgrounds. Candice Faktor helped scale Wattpad, one of the largest storytelling platforms in the world (sold last month for $660MM). Chris Sukornyk is a 6x serial tech entrepreneur who founded Chango, a performance marketing platform that sold for $120MM. Both are committed to supporting creators in finding sustainable ways to monetize their passion and purpose.
“Wattpad, a platform for nearly 100MM users, pioneered social and serial storytelling – a format both creators and readers love.” Ivan Yuen, founder, Wattpad. “Disco is pioneering social and serial learning – a format both creators and learners want – making learning fun, and highly engaging.”
Graham Hill (Carbonauts), Dan Martell (SaaS Academy), Sarah Lacy (Chairman Mom), Michele Romanow (Clearbanc, Dragon’s Den), are a few of the creators with the Disco platform.
“As a founder whose company grew 10x in 2020 from online courses, I can tell you how limited the tools are, especially if you want a mix of asynchronous and live and community. There is nothing else in the market like this, and it’s coming at the exact right time for thousands of creators around the globe.” Sarah Lacy, Chairman Mom
“By building a platform that easily brings all the tools under one roof, we allow creators to market and monetize so they can focus on what they love: teaching!” says Chris.
“Our vision for learning leaves the industrial age behind. It looks to a future of lifelong learning, that’s live, with a peer group. Our dream is that creators can earn a living teaching what they love and millions of people have access to transformative live learning experiences ” adds Candice.
Disco is currently live and in closed beta. There is a waitlist of a few hundred creators registered. Funds from this round will be used to bring the product to market and hire an exceptional, diverse team who are excited to pioneer this new way of learning and monetizing for creators.
Passionate about building community, find out more: https://www.disco.co/
About Disco:
Where creators build live learning experiences. Disco is a platform for creators to build and scale their learning empire easily in one place. We help creators grow their learning community with workshops, cohort-based courses, and microschool tools.
SOURCE Disco
For further information: Jerome Glowacki, E: jerome@disco.co