JamJar Investments back Learning App in $1m round

Mobile learning company, EducationApps today announces that it has raised over $1m in seed funding from Index Ventures and JamJar Investments. Founded by 21-year-old student George Burgess, the company this week releases its new mobile learning platform Gojimo.

Available on the iPhone and iPad, Gojimo offers content from some of the world’s largest academic publishers including McGraw-Hill Education and Oxford University Press. The content covers most UK and US secondary school qualifications including Common Entrance, GCSE, A Level, SAT, ACT, AP, and IB, all of which will be sat this spring. Students are able to download the app for free and can then purchase study guides and quizzes using an in-app purchase.

Schools can also make use of the app, with Gojimo offering bulk purchases to academic institutions. To further entice teachers, the company gave attendees of last week’s BETT show a sneak peek of Gojimo’s Teacher Portal, to be released later this year. The portal will enable teachers to track their students’ progress, send them assignments and messages, and perform quizzes in the classroom.

EducationApps is backed by some of Europe’s most prestigious investors, including Index Ventures whose investments include ASOS, Dropbox, Etsy, King, MySQL, Skype and Supercell. Burgess is the youngest founder Index has invested in since it was founded in 1996. Richard Reed, Adam Balon and Jon Wright — the trio behind Innocent Drinks — have also invested in the company through JamJar Investments, their consumer venture fund.

Burgess was until recently a full-time student, attending Stanford University in California. He returned to the UK to raise the money and run the company full time. He plans to use the investment to expand the team and bring new features to Gojimo. “We’re playing around with some interesting gamification ideas; the hope is that we can make exam preparation just slightly more bearable for students,” says Burgess. “We’ve seen mobiles and tablets change every part of our lives, except for our education. Gojimo changes that.”

Jon Wright, one of the three founders of JamJar Investments, said: “We loved George from the moment we met him. He’s a smart, focused guy and he’s got ambition beyond his years. Everybody knows that mobile and digital is hot but we believe the education industry is going to be transformed by them too.”