Participated · Equity · Oct 2024

Perlego operates a subscription-based digital library providing access to over one million academic, professional and non-fiction titles. The company has signed partnerships with thousands of publisher brands globally to populate its library. It is used by students worldwide and sells access via a recurring subscription model. Perlego was founded in 2017 by CEO Gauthier Van Malderen and is based in London, UK. The company plans to use new funding to expand internationally and to develop AI-driven products, including Dialogo, an AI-powered research assistant. Its most recent round brought total funding to date to $75M. Perlego operates a textbook-subscription platform that gives paying users unlimited access to textbooks, fiction and other course materials. It currently has 400,000 paying subscribers and a catalogue of about 850,000 titles, which the company says makes it the largest online textbook subscription service. Perlego works with roughly 5,000 education publishers, including Cengage, Routledge, Cambridge University Press, Elsevier and Harvard University Press, and is linked with 6,000 institutions across 172 countries; about 40% of its students are in the U.S. The company saw rapid growth during the COVID-19 pandemic (450% subscriber growth in 2021) and says its catalogue rose 166% in the last year and by more than 500,000 titles since 2019. Consumer pricing is £12/month in the U.K. ($18 in the U.S.) with an annual plan that averages £8/month ($12/month) and a two-week free trial; publishers receive roughly 65% of subscription revenues plus additional consumption-based commissions. Product plans include building an ecosystem for course material (annotations, shared libraries, instructor tools), exploring premium tiers and potentially selling physical copies, while the company rejects ad-supported models. Perlego is a London-based textbook subscription service that gives students and professionals access to a large digital library across web, iOS and Android. It houses over 300,000 eBooks from more than 2,300 publishers, including Pearson, Wiley and Sage, and offers content in multiple languages with publishers from Germany, the Nordics and Italy. Professionals comprise about 30% of users, and Perlego reports a 116% month-on-month increase in new subscribers, though it does not disclose total subscriber numbers. In the U.K. the service is priced at £12 per month for access to the full digital library and is positioned as a "Spotify for textbooks" to address high textbook costs and piracy. Perlego says the new funding will be used to build the next-generation "smarter learning platform," add features that simplify and enhance learning, and expand content libraries in non-English languages. The company intends to use these additions to support expansion into strategic European markets beyond its U.K. roots. Perlego provides students and professionals unlimited access to hundreds of thousands of academic and professional eBook titles for £12 a month. The service works with around 650 publishers, including Oxford University Press, Princeton University Press, Macmillan Higher Education, and Cengage Learning. Publishers receive 65% of each subscription on a consumption basis, and Perlego supplies publishers with detailed data on title consumption. The company says its model helps monetise content for price-sensitive students, reduce piracy, and avoid cannibalisation of second-hand print sales. Founded by Gauthier Van Malderen and Matthew Davis, Perlego has joined the Founders Factory edtech accelerator backed by Holtzbrinck Macmillan. It plans to use new funding to grow the team, expand across the U.K. and Europe, and further develop its product for students and professionals. Perlego is a London-based e-book platform that offers academic and professional e-books through a monthly subscription. The company has partnered with over 240 publishers and offers more than 85,000 e-books to date. Founded by Gauthier Van Malderen and Matthew Davis, Perlego focuses on making academic and professional content available via subscription. The company intends to use newly raised funds to grow the team, expand publishing partnerships, and continue developing the platform. Financially, Perlego secured £500K in seed funding from private angels in the UK, Belgium and France, including investor Simon Franks.

Led · Series A · Aug 2024

Impactpool is an AI-enabled career platform provided by Intalma – International Talent Management that aggregates vacancies from hundreds of international organizations. It focuses on roles at UN organizations, international financial institutions, the European Union, and leading intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. Founded in 2015 and led by CEO Magnus Bucht, Impactpool operates as a social enterprise supporting people pursuing careers in mission-driven organizations. The platform's core product is a vacancy aggregation and career-matching system powered by AI to surface relevant opportunities across the sector. The company plans to use newly raised capital to enhance its technology and expand its business reach. Impact Pool, founded in 2015, is a social enterprise that operates a career platform for people seeking careers within mission-driven organizations. The platform gathers vacancies from hundreds of international organizations worldwide, covering UN organizations, international financial institutions, the European Union and major intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. It provides qualified and motivated individuals with career resources to grow professionally and offers organizations a source for reaching top candidates. Impact Pool is provided by Intalma – International Talent Management and was previously known as UNjobfinder. In August 2018 the company secured $820k in funding from backers including Staffan Ingeborn and Lexis Invest, alongside other new and existing investors.

Led · Series A · Jul 2024

WorkerHero, founded in 2021 by Richard Fischer, Steven Miller, Michael König, and Emanuel Wernitz, offers an AI-driven sourcing and matching platform for recruiting skilled workers. The platform is available in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and has over 70,000 users. Companies using the platform include Telekom, HelloFresh, and BayWa. The company raised €4M in a Series A funding round led by Mediahuis. The funding is intended to help WorkerHero scale, enter new industries, and update its platform. WorkerHero plans to focus on international hiring to support companies in recruiting skilled workers from abroad and targets well-defined blue-collar sectors to improve match speed and quality.

Led · Series A · Jun 2024

Taskbase builds an EdTech platform that automates correction and feedback for open-ended exercises, reducing reliance on multiple-choice assessments. The product aims to give teachers automated feedback and grading on open exercises to save substantial time. The company plans faster expansion into several European markets and to further improve product quality for existing customers. Taskbase is hiring across Engineering, AI, Delivery, Sales, and Marketing to support product development and growth. The team emphasizes moving education away from standardised multiple-choice toward more open tasks that they can evaluate programmatically. The company recently completed a funding round that will support these product and expansion plans. Taskbase, founded in 2015 and based in Zurich, develops advanced adaptive learning technology delivered as a SaaS product. Its platform enables digital learning platforms to create intelligent e-learning solutions. The company and investors point to a broader trend in which more than half of educational content is now delivered digitally. Taskbase says the new funding will support internationalization, improve product scalability, and strengthen the team and partnerships. Co-founder Samuel Portmann said that after years of research and bootstrapping the company is positioned to become a globally leading SaaS provider for adaptive learning. The announcement frames the raise as enabling the startup to take its advanced adaptive learning to the next level.

Led · Series A · Apr 2024

Alleo (formerly YourCampus) is an HR platform that enables employees to adjust compensation and benefits to match life stages by integrating tax regulations and collective agreements. The company offers personalised total compensation solutions aimed at diverse demographics to increase flexibility, transparency and purchasing power. Initially serving startups, scale-ups and SMEs, Alleo is now targeting larger corporate markets and has launched expansion efforts in Germany. The platform engages over 100,000 users and works with clients including Picnic, Van Lanschot Kempen, Red Bull, YoungCapital and Van der Valk. In Germany, Alleo reports over 20 companies and more than 100 benefit providers engaged on its platform. The company was founded in 2021 and rebranded from YourCampus to Alleo to signal a new chapter focused on enterprise growth. YourCampus offers a platform that lets employers allocate personal budgets so employees can choose fringe benefits across wellbeing, personal development, financial wellbeing and mobility. Employers can reuse existing salary components (pension, holiday pay, days off) and add one-time rewards while integrating with HR and payroll vendors such as Visma Nmbrs, HiBob, Personio, Loket and AFAS. The platform aggregates partner services from providers including Brand New Day, Classpass, Swapfiets and GoodHabitz, and charges employers a monthly fee per employee. Founded in 2021 and based in Amsterdam, the startup already serves more than 100 companies. With the new funding it plans to expand across Europe, add flexible holiday pay and days off, further expand flexible pension options, and add more HR services. Management says the app has a high engagement rate and aims to have over 1 million employees active on the platform by 2025.