Quipper Platform Announces Series A Funding
London, UK — Friday 18th May 2012: Quipper, the e-learning start-up led by Masa Watanabe, a co-founder of Japanese mobile social gaming company DeNA, today announced that it has raised £2.3m ($3.6m) of Series A funding.
The London-based company also revealed that its users have answered questions on the platform 85m times since it launched in October.
The round has been financed by three investors with unique expertise: Atomico, the London-based international technology venture capital firm led by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström; Globis, the leading Japanese venture capital firm; and Benesse, the major Japanese education and publishing company. Globis led the funding round.
Quipper’s app allows users to answer a series of questions, creating a powerful iterative learning process that is fun, convenient and easy to use. People can also use it as a platform to create their own quiz programmes, making the app valuable for teachers and other educators, and encouraging the growth of a valuable body of educational content.
The app can be used in areas ranging from schooling and other public education programmes, through to professional training and hobbies. Quiz programmes can be accessed easily on the move via Apple and Android smartphones, making learning engaging and accessible, especially for busy people.
Today, Quipper’s quizzes cover more than 2,000 topics, from maths to healthcare, and languages ranging from Dutch to Turkish. New quizzes are being added all the time by Quipper and its users.
The app has a rating of 4.5 stars in both the Apple and Android app stores, with over 1,200 ratings across all versions. The fundraising will help Quipper continue to expand with an emphasis on increasing the amount of high-quality content available to users, to enhance its position as the leading educational tool of its kind. It follows seed funding from Atomico last year.
Masa Watanabe said: “It’s great to have such distinguished investors who have unrivalled expertise in their respective areas. The fundraising will help us expand our team, grow at an even faster rate, and continue to establish Quipper as the leading educational platform of its kind.”
Hiro Tamura, a Partner at Atomico, said: “Quipper has a great opportunity in front of it, bringing the benefits of mobile internet technology to the huge and vitally important education market. It has had remarkable success so far, and has outstanding leadership, giving it huge potential going forward.”
Minoru Imano, a Partner at Globis Capital Partners, commented: “Quipper has huge potential to expand its platform globally and bring innovation into educational markets. It is my great honour to be the lead investor of this Series A round, to be able to invest in such a great company and a great entrepreneur, with great co-investors.”
