Gojimo, a UK-based app that helps students study for exams, has recently secured $1.8 million in funding to grow its offerings and operations.
This round’s investors include Robin and Saul Klein of Index Ventures, Deborah Quazzo of GSV Advisors, Firestartr, and London Mayor Boris Johnson’s London Co-Investment Fund. Some funds also came from crowd-funding platform CrowdBnk. The company’s goal was £500,000 but it raised £1,115,411, writes Henry Williams of Startups.
Gojimo, which quizzes students in preparation for exams, is available for Android and iOS as well as on the web, all for free and with the ability to sync between platforms. Test prep is available for GCSE, A Level, IB, iGCSE, Common Entrance, Junior Certificate, SATs, and the Matric exams. The app students only on the content they need to know, and then explains the answers in detail with links to more information. To avoid burnout and to make the most of short time periods like the drive to school, the app offers quizzes that are between 5 and 25 questions. These quizzes can be chosen by the app at random or by the user to practice the topics that they find the most challenging.
As an example, students can select the Psychology GCSE, and then the exam board that applies to them. They can choose a random quiz, or a quiz on topics like memory or non-verbal communication. Whether a student gets a question correct or incorrect, an explanation will reinforce the right answer.
Last May 300,000 students used the app, which is more than 20% of all GCSE and A level students.
According to Emily Spaven of Tech City News, the new funding will be used for app development, premium services, and marketing efforts. Sam Shead of Business Insider writes that the company also plans to add social and competitive features to increase engagement.
CEO George Burgess founded the startup in 2009 when he was only 17 years old. He made a Geography GCSE revision app with help from a freelance coder and his Geography teacher. Originally, each subject had its own separate app before Burgess had the idea to combine them under the name Gojimo. He eventually dropped out of Stanford to manage his company full-time.
Steve O’Hear of Tech Crunch quoted Burgess on Gojimo’s role as a game-changer in education achievement:
Students today use their mobile phones for everything, except their education. When revising for exams, they’re forced to rely on archaic resources that haven’t changed in centuries.
In fact, the two most popular ways to revise are still physical textbooks and past papers. We change that by delivering an extensive library of high-quality assessment material to their mobile phone for free.
…[Some of the bigger publishers] only tend to release a small amount of content through their apps, whereas we now offer over 180,000 revision questions, all with detailed explanations, written and fact-checked by subject experts. We cover every major GSCE and A level subject.
In total, Gojimo has raised over $3 million in funding. Previous backers include London VC Index Ventures and JamJar Investments.
