Coursera was founded by Stanford computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller and launched publicly in April 2012. The founding announcement cited here, from Princeton University’s official news office and dated April 18, 2012, states that “Princeton will join Stanford University, the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania in developing Web-based course materials from a variety of academic fields” on the new platform.
Princeton described Coursera as a platform of “recorded video lectures that are embedded with quizzes and interactive exercises,” with “collaborative forums for viewers to discuss materials and pose questions,” available free to “users from around the world.” That design built on the fall 2011 Stanford online courses that Ng and Koller had each taught to tens of thousands of students before leaving to start the company.
Coursera differed from a single course experiment by signing universities as institutional partners, letting many schools publish under one brand and shared technology. It launched with a $16 million Series A round and rapidly added more universities, helping make 2012 the year the press dubbed “the year of the MOOC.”
Why business readers should care: Coursera turned online higher education into a multi-sided marketplace connecting universities, learners, and employers. It is the commercial backbone on which much of today’s credentialed online learning, including AI-assisted courses, is delivered.