Brainly, a global social learning network designed to allow students to help each other with schoolwork, has completed a $9 million Series A funding round with the participation of several major venture funds. Among them are General Catalyst Partners, who led the round, Runa Capital, a venture firm operating globally from its offices in Moscow and San Francisco, Learn Capital, and previous investors in the startup, including Point Nine Capital.
With the funding, Brainly, which is based in Krakow, Poland, is expanding its US operations and opening an office in New York City.
Brainly connects middle and high-school-aged students to ask, and teach each other how to answer homework questions. More than 30 million people visit Brainly websites each month, according to the company. They learn how to solve problems across a variety of school subjects, including various levels of math, English, history, geography, health, and business.
Following its success in Poland, Brainly has expanded to 35 countries throughout Europe, South America and Asia.
Brainly has been operating in Russia since 2011 under the brand Znanija, attracting more than 12.5 million users. No less than 30,000 answers are generated daily, according to the company.
This funding deal marks the second edu-tech investment for Runa Capital II, which launched recently with a $200 million target. Last month the fund led a $2.2 million funding round in SchoolMint, a provider of mobile and online enrollment systems for US public, charter and private schools.
Runa Capital I invested in several educational startups, too. Among them are Russian companies Eruditor, Dnevnik.ru and LinguaLeo.
