Outlier.org produces high-quality, intro-level college courses online that can be taken for credit. The company was founded and is led by Aaron Rasmussen, the former MasterClass co-founder, and launched in fall 2019. Outlier currently offers six courses (including Calculus I, Microeconomics, Astronomy and Philosophy), charges $400 per course, and runs new cohorts every two weeks while using custom student-support tools to identify and assist students who are falling behind. It aims to expand to 14 courses by the end of 2022 and has hired Anjuli Gupta to lead university partnerships, with outreach to colleges, high schools and employers. Outlier expanded a partnership with the University of Pittsburgh into a five-year agreement providing credit and academic oversight and is offering $3.8 million in scholarships to 1,000 frontline workers. The company raised a $30 million Series B this round, bringing total disclosed funding to $46 million. Outlier.org provides online entry-level college courses for transferable credit, starting with Calculus I and Introduction to Psychology. Courses are taught by professors and instructors from institutions including Yale, MIT, Columbia and Cornell and are shot specifically for online viewing. Classes include dynamically generated problem sets and one-on-one tutoring, and Outlier charges $400 per class (including textbooks and other costs). If students pass, they receive transferable credits from the University of Pittsburgh, and Outlier is extending its partnership with Pittsburgh into the spring and summer terms of 2020. In its first fall-semester classes, students achieved a C grade or better at the same rate as those in comparable traditional classrooms. Founder and CEO Aaron Rasmussen (a MasterClass co-founder) says the company will continue building more intro-level courses and expand to accommodate more students and experts to increase access and reduce student debt.

Total raised

$42M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series B

Latest activity

Apr 2021