Online training video platform Cursogram has closed a $900,000 round from international investors Kima Ventures, TA Venture, PROfounders Capital, Lead Edge Capital, Great Oaks Venture Capital and business angels. The platform was born a year ago with $300,000 in funding from its three co-founders, Carlos Martín, Jose Marín and Fabrice Grinda.
Cursogram offers teachers a platform to share their knowledge in three key areas: tech, creativity and business/finance. Currently the platform hosts more than 50 video courses that range from €10 to €99. The company follows a revenue share business model, sharing revenues with teachers and keeping itself a commission on each transaction that takes place through the site.
Cursogram, which has 20 employees in its Madrid office, declined to provide user or revenue numbers.
The startup follows the same model as well-funded ($103 million) and US-based Lynda.com. In a conversation with Novobrief Carlos Martín says that “our model is very similar to Lynda’s, since we produce all of the videos in our platform”. Another startup in the space is Madrid-based Tutellus, which recently raised €800,000 from various investors. “We are quite different from them”, Carlos says. “Tutellus is a marketplace where anyone can upload their own videos”.
An experienced team in building, selling and fundraising
Co-founders Jose Marín and Carlos Martín are not news to the startup space. Jose co-founded in 1999 DeRemate.com (a clone of eBay in Latam) that went on to raise more than $75 million and was sold to Terra and later merged with Mercado Libre, which went public in the Nasdaq.
Following a long career in various consulting firms, Carlos Martín co-founded with Jose IG Expansion in 2002. IG Expansion is an investment vehicle “to start and develop technology companies in Spain and Latinamerica”. According to its website, the firm has invested in five companies.
Fabrice Grinda, from France, is currently the chairman of Beepi and previously co-founded OLX, Zingy or Aucland. As a business angel and according to Crunchbase, Fabrice has backed more than 150 startups.
Interestingly, both Jose Marin and Fabrice Grinda are also partners at New York VC firm True Global Ventures.
Not many Spanish startups decide -or are able- to raise its first round of funding from international institutional investors. As highlighted above, Cursogram’s $900,000 investment includes the likes of Kima Ventures, TA Venture or PROFounders Capital.
Asked about the decision to forgo Spanish investors, Carlos Martin told Novobrief that “we’re following the same path we’ve taken before”, in reference to their previous experience in working with international partners.
