Having raised $10 million in Series A funding, digital learning platform BibliU is aiming to expand its services in both the UK and US EdTech market

Last month, digital learning platform BibliU raised $10 million in Series A funding in a round led by Nesta Impact Investments, which also included Guinness Asset Management and direct investment clients of Stonehage Fleming and ClearlySo.  BibliU is a digital textbooks solution for universities and higher education institutions.  Using the platform students can easily search for and access electronic textbooks.  University staff can view data analytics such as content usage and procurement statistics.

A division within Nesta, Nesta Impact Investments is a global innovation fund which includes 10 European EdTech companies.  The investment in BibliU represents its most recent funding campaign.  It reports that educational content is a $65bn market and explains that the current situation brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic has created an additional impetus for online and remote learning solutions.

You can read more about why Nesta chose to invest in BibliU here: https://www.nesta.org.uk/project-updates/why-were-investing-edtech-higher-education/

A London based startup, BibliU was spun out of the University of Oxford Innovation Fund.  Founded in 2015, the company was initially called Bibliotech but has since been rebranded.  Around September 2018 it received a $4.2m seed capital investment led by Oxford University and other investors including venture capital fund Oxford Sciences Innovation and Fritz Demopoulos, co-founder and former CEO of the Chinese online travel platform Qunar.  It now operates offices in New York and London and works with more than 40% of universities in the UK and over 2000 individual publishers.  It has strategic partnerships with Coventry University and California State University Long Beach.

“ As a student at Oxford and the University of Western Australia, I would’ve loved to have had access to this content online for free. That’s why I founded BibliU and I’m proud to say we’ve addressed that for hundreds of thousands of students at our partner universities. We’re investing in our team and continuing to develop our institutional delivery tools… ” Dave Sherwood, CEO, BibliU

To help institutions during the Covid-19 pandemic it has offered two months free access to textbooks, monographs or OERs with participating publishers.  It is also offering access to its Wellness and Study Skills collections.  The offer will expire at the end of May.  More information about BibliU be accessed here: https://bibliu.com/#/about

You can read more about EdTech here: https://global-edtech.com/edtech-definitions-products-and-trends/