Education Technology · Profile from Education Technology Research Companion
MasterClass (Yanka Industries, Inc.)
A San Francisco consumer-learning company that turned education into premium entertainment. It films famous practitioners (Gordon Ramsay, Serena Williams, Aaron Sorkin, Annie Leibovitz and hundreds more) at Hollywood production quality and sells unlimited access as an annual subscription. It grew on lavish brand advertising and the 2020 pandemic, reached a reported $2.75bn valuation in 2021, then spent 2022–23 cutting staff and costs, and is now betting on B2B (MasterClass at Work) and AI versions of its instructors (On Call).
At a glance
- Founded
- 2012 as Yanka Industries, San Francisco; first classes launched May 2015
- Founders
- David Rogier (CEO) and Aaron Rasmussen (left the company ~2016–17; later co-founded Outlier.org)
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, California
- Ownership / structure
- Private, venture-backed C-corporation (legal name Yanka Industries, Inc.); investors include IVP, NEA, Fidelity, Baillie Gifford, Eldridge, Javelin Venture Partners, Advancit Capital and others (reported)
- Leadership (2026)
- David Rogier, co-founder and CEO (verify for 2026; no reported change)
- Segment and buyer
- Consumer lifelong learning / "edutainment"; individual adults pay; secondary B2B line (MasterClass at Work) sold to employers; consumer AI app (On Call)
- Scale
- ~200+ instructors and classes (reported, mid-2020s); paid subscribers not officially disclosed (third-party estimates in the low millions); revenue not disclosed (outside estimates in the low-to-mid hundreds of millions of USD, unverified)
- Capital raised / valuation
- ~$460m+ raised in total (reported); last priced round: $225m Series F, May 2021, led by Fidelity, at ~$2.75bn post-money (reported, not confirmed by the company)
- Signature moves
- Celebrity-instructor production model (2015); All-Access annual subscription (2017); heavy brand advertising (2018–21); pandemic surge and Series E (2020); unicorn Series F and MasterClass at Work (2021); Sessions (2022); three rounds of layoffs (2022–23); On Call AI instructors (2024). Misses: post-2021 growth stall, stale valuation, weak evidence that viewing translates into skill
9 strategic moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
2015
Launch Celebrity Instructor Model
Launch
2017
All Access Pass Subscription
Pricing change (à la carte to annual subscription)
2018
Series D and Brand Advertising
Funding round / go-to-market (paid brand and performance advertising at scale)
2020
Series E Pandemic Surge
Funding round
2021
MasterClass at Work Enterprise
Launch (B2B)
2021
Series F Unicorn Round
Funding round
2022
Layoffs and Self Sustainability
Restructuring
2022
Sessions Structured Learning
Launch / product pivot
2024
On Call AI Instructors
AI launch