London-based startup Perlego raises £7 million

by Startacus Admin

Funding success will see this startup's development and expansion plans move forward

Great news from London-based startup, Perlego who have announced that they’ve closed their Series A fundraising round at a total of £7 million.The funding has been backed by Charlie Songhurst, Dedicated VC, Thomas Leysen (Chairman of Mediahuis and Umicore) as well as further financing from Perlego’s existing investors including ADV, Simon Franks and Alex Chesterman. This investment will be used to develop the next generation of Perlego’s smarter learning platform with new features that simplify and enhance the learning experience, and content libraries in non-English languages to facilitate its expansion into the strategic European markets.

Perlego’s core aim is to make education material accessible for all. It currently provides access to over 300,000 eBooks, from over 2,300 publishers, cross-device and in multiple languages and now includes content from key publishers in Germany, the Nordics and Italy.

However, Perlego’s success has not just been confined to the academic sector, with a significant number of professionals also using the platform, thereby indicating that it could have an impact on knowledge sharing well beyond the traditional education sphere.

The Perlego platform provides solutions to many of the issues that face the academic publishing sector. Textbook prices have increased at three times the rate of inflation since 1978 and UK students currently spend on average £400 per year on textbooks. Perlego on the other hand gives its users access to the entire digital library for £12 per month - a considerable saving.

Publishers clearly benefit since Perlego offers a distribution method that reclaims the revenue losses to piracy and the second-hand market, similar to what Spotify has done for the music industry. Perlego has seen a 116% increase in new subscribers month-on-month and with more and more established publishers moving towards the digital sector, it’s evident that the future is digital, thereby validating the startup’s mission statement and business model.

Whilst the volume of academic materials being sold in physical form has declined since 2014, digital textbooks have seen an increase in their market share and that looks set to continue. Perlego therefore is ensuring that publisher revenues are protected while at the same time widening user access to educational materials.

Speaking on today’s investment news , Gauthier Van Malderen, co-founder and CEO at Perlego noted:

“Learning should be accessible for all, but unfortunately, the economics of the publishing industry means that this isn’t always possible. With Perlego, we can change this. Our platform widens access to educational materials at an affordable rate while concurrently driving profitability for the publishing sector. This means that more people will be able to enjoy the opportunities afforded to them by education.”

It is a sentiment echoed by Brent Hoberman, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, Founders Factory: "With digital services like Perlego, the industry is one step closer to tackling the accessibility issue in education, and publishers can enhance their bottom line through textbook streaming.”

Here at Startacus HQ, we’re looking forward to seeing how this investment helps Perlego further develop its innovative platform. We love seeing one of our former startups of the week going from strength to strength!

 

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Published on: 19th November 2019