Edtech startup proves a ‘page-turner’ in latest £15m Series B funding round

BibliU, a company delivering “affordable and accessible” course online books for universities, libraries and other higher education institutions has raised £1.3m from Wealth Club clients under the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS).

This funding came into the third tranche of BibliU’s £15m Series B round, where the final £4.7m was closed out, with Wealth Club taking 27 per cent of the tranche.

Launched in 2015 at the University of Oxford’s Startup Incubator, BibliU was created to address the problem faced by many students when paying for the “increasingly expensive” learning materials required for their courses.

Due to the increasing costs of university textbooks, which have risen by four times the rate of inflation since 1977, many students have turned to second-hand, rented or even pirated copies to make ends meet. This has led to publishers increasing their prices in order to recover lost revenues, thus “exacerbating the problem”.

BibilU is used by 112 universities from Oxford, Cambridge to Cornell and Phoenix in the United States. The platform allows higher educational institutions to licence textbooks and courseware, primarily in digital format, for all students for a single, standardised fee, rather than having to set separate contracts with each publisher.

Students can also access content on-demand through BibliU’s marketplace, the digital equivalent of a library, “saving up to 50 per cent” in costs.

The funds invested will enable the company to continue its expansion across the UK and US, develop new products, secure additional publisher partnerships and invest further in sales and marketing, stimulating growth.

Alex Davies, CEO and founder, Wealth Club, commented: “BibliU is a great example of a company solving long existent problems with modern day tools. It allows hundreds of thousands of students to access course materials at little or no costs, helping to improve the accessibility of education while also improving learning outcomes.

“This in turn has delivered great commercial success, with a proven product in a growing market and the pandemic has only accelerated demand.”

Dave Sherwood, BibliU’c co-founder and CEO, added: “This funding will help facilitate this business’s continued growth in developing new technology that will further streamline processes for publishes and academic institutions and, most importantly, improve the learning experience and outcomes for all students, regardless of their individual needs or circumstances.”

By Matthew Neville – Correspondent, Bdaily

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