The Open University has secured a £50-million investment in its FutureLearn online learning platform from Australian company SEEK Group.
The deal will see the firm, which is best known as a recruitment company but which also has an online education arm, become joint owner of FutureLearn, which was founded in December 2012 to rival American providers of massive open online courses (Moocs).
The deal, which FutureLearn believes to be the largest ever private-sector education-technology investment in Europe, will see SEEK Group receive 30 million shares in the platform, giving it a 50 per cent share of the business. The money will be paid to FutureLearn, not to The Open University, which will retain the other 50 per cent of the shares.
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