VK COMPANY LIMITED NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - May 11, 2016) - Brainly, the world's largest social learning community for students, today announced that it has closed a $15M Series B round of funding led by the global internet and entertainment group, Naspers, to bring total funding from existing investors including General Catalyst Partners, Point Nine Capital, Runa Capital and Learn Capital to $27M. The investments reinforce Brainly's success and growth globally, and ambition to give every student in the world access to personalized learning in a collaborative community.
Brainly has grown globally to reach over 60 million users in 35 countries -- 12 languages -- throughout the United States, Europe, South America and Asia, including Russia, Indonesia and Brazil. This new investment will be used to accelerate Brainly's global growth and focus on the U.S. market, while adding new advancements in machine learning technologies to the current platform, helping to deliver a more exciting, accurate and personalized experience for middle and high school students.
"We continue to believe that peer-to-peer learning is the most effective way to increase curiosity, build confidence and engage with other like-minded students around the world. Nobody knows everything, but everybody knows something," said Brainly CEO Michal Borkowski. "Thanks to our fantastic investors, Brainly has the opportunity to further expand on this vision within the United States, while continuing to explore other international markets in Asia, Europe and South America."
Started in 2009, Brainly began with an idea that learning and collaboration online should be as engaging, effective and rewarding as the lively and informative discussions that happen inside and outside of a classroom. Today, that has resulted in a platform that empowers students to help one another answer questions around class assignments or discussions, or to simply learn more about a specific subject matter that they're curious about. Students gain points for answering questions from their fellow students, which they can then cash in for the ability to post more questions of their own. This natural cycle of engagement has resulted in over 26 million answered questions at a rate of 8,000 questions per hour.
"Naspers is excited to partner with Brainly, and invest in a platform that is transforming how students solve problems at a global scale," said Larry Illg, CEO, Naspers Ventures. "Improving how students learn and interact with online learning tools should be a goal of every region around the globe. We share in Brainly's vision of executing on this goal in countries big and small, including the United States."
About Brainly
Brainly is the place to learn, for students, by students. The world's largest social learning community, Brainly.com and the Brainly app bring high school and middle school students together to make learning outside the classroom highly engaging, effective and rewarding. Students connect to their peers to help strengthen their skills, from math, to science, to history and beyond. Based in Kraków, Poland, with U.S. headquarters in New York City, Brainly is currently available in 35 countries, representing 12 languages. Learn more about Brainly at meet.brainly.co.
About Naspers
Founded in 1915, Naspers is a global internet and entertainment group and one of the largest technology investors in the world. Operating in more than 130 countries and markets with long-term growth potential, Naspers builds leading companies that empower people and enrich communities. It runs some of the world's leading platforms in internet, video entertainment, and media.
Naspers companies connect people to each other and the wider world, help people improve their daily lives, and entertain audiences with the best of local and global content. Every day, hundreds of millions of people use the products and services of companies that Naspers has invested in, acquired and built, including Allegro, Avito, eMAG, Flipkart, letgo, Mail.Ru (
Naspers is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (NPN.SJ) and has an ADR listing on the London Stock Exchange (
For more information, please visit www.naspers.com.
