Perlego has closed $4.8m in funding to make it easier for college students to afford books while also having money left over to fulfill basic living needs like food, and sleep.
Why? Because textbooks are f*cking expensive. Research shows prices have increased more than 800% from 1978 to 2012.
But, Perlego wants to change all of that: Founded by Gauthier Van Malderen and Matthew Davis, their model is designed to give students and professionals unlimited access to over 200k academic and professional eBook titles for around $15 a month.
Sure, sounds like a great idea, but how?
To pull it off, the company works with 650 publishers, including big names like Oxford University Press, Princeton University Press, Macmillan Higher Education, and Cengage Learning.
According to Van Malderen, publishers will benefit through “data collection, reduced piracy, and no cannibalization from second-hand print sales.”
Oh, yes, and of course money. Publishers will receive 65% of each subscription on a consumption basis.
Whatcha gon’ do with all that cash? All that cash inside that… wallet
According to TechCrunch, Perlego will use the new funding to grow the team and support the company’s growth across the UK and Europe, and also further invest in developing its product.
Perlego has also joined Founders Factory this month as part of its edtech accelerator program, which is backed by Holtzbrinck Macmillan — one of the world’s largest academic publishers.