An EdTech scale-up that offers students a platform to exchange knowledge has raised £36 million funding and plans to double its UK workforce.
StuDocu, headquartered in Amsterdam, is focused on international growth, with the UK a key market.
It currently reaches more than 150,000 unique UK-based students every month, studying at more than 100 universities.
“We try to double in terms of both students using our platform as well as revenue every year. The UK is one of the markets where we see the biggest growth potential given it has almost 2.5 million students,” Marnix Broer, CEO and co-founder, told BusinessCloud after the Series B funding from Partech was announced.
“We’re currently working with a team of 50 talented and ambitious colleagues and we’re aiming at doubling this number within the next year. We have an extremely international team, with over 20 different nationalities.
“The business itself is not affected by Brexit as we offer an online platform. It may make it a bit more difficult to hire people from the UK, but we’re up for a huge hiring spree so we’re happy to run an extra mile to attract talent from the UK.
“Also, our platform offers a lot of English documents as even in non-English speaking countries many studies are taught in English and use English content.”
The funding will be used to further the global growth of StuDocu as it moves closer to its mission to serve all 200m college and university students globally, as well as to expand the team significantly.
The round follows a banner year of growth for the company after it more than doubled its monthly active users to reaches 15m students from 2,000 universities across 60 countries.
Founded in 2013 by four students, StuDocu was born out of the need to share study resources more efficiently. The online platform allows students to share their study materials – lecture notes, summaries and practice materials – and exchange knowledge with fellow students.
Previous funding rounds raised in 2015, 2018, and 2019 kick-started StuDocu’s expansion to markets like Australia, Canada, Germany, the UK and the United States, helping the platform become the international leader in the document sharing space.
“In the UK, as everywhere else in the world, a lot of the focus in EdTech in the last year of COVID-19 living has been on technology that helps people learn remotely as well – or maybe even better – than they might have done in more traditional, physical environments: improved streaming experiences, better approaches for teaching via a screen, tools for managing the experience, and so on,” added Broer.
“StuDocu both fits that mould, but also, in a way, is a throwback to the more basic approach we associate with learning: sitting in a class and taking notes during the lessons.
“StuDocu also shows that running a high-growth profitable business in the EdTech industry is possible.”
Bruno Crémel, General Partner at Partech, said: “StuDocu is a platform already helping millions of students around the world, and we’re excited to partner with this talented team in their mission to make education more accessible to all.
“When we met the team at StuDocu, we were wildly impressed with their data-driven culture and by how much students really love using their services.
“We look forward to working closely with Marnix and his team as they accelerate StuDocu’s global expansion and develop even more innovative ways to support students in meeting their learning goals.”