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Perlego

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Perlego
IndustryEducation
Founded2017; 7 years ago (2017)
Headquarters
London
,
United Kingdom
Key people
Gauthier van Malderen, CEO
Matthew Davis, CTO
Websiteperlego.com

Perlego is a digital library that offers readers unlimited access to over 1 million academic, professional and non-fiction eBooks. They have been billed as “the Spotify for Textbooks” by the Evening Standard.[1] It is a membership-based service that allows users to read any book available in the library for the duration of their membership.[2]

Perlego offers ebooks in 5 languages: English, Spanish, Italian, German and French, from local and international publishers. The service is available worldwide and allows users to read both online and offline on most smartphones, tablets or laptop devices.

History

Perlego was founded in 2017 in London, United Kingdom by Gauthier Van Malderen and Matthew Davis, both Belgian[3] natives and recent university graduates.

Drawing from their personal experiences with the high and rising cost of university textbooks,[4] and noting the convenience of accessing music and films via subscription models like Netflix and Spotify, the founders aimed to increase global access to academic resources. They did this by offering students an "all-you-can-read" subscription model, providing a more affordable and convenient alternative to purchasing new textbooks while aiding publishers in reclaiming market share lost to online piracy.

Funding

Perlego was initially self-funded. Its pre-seed funding was derived from the profit made from Gauthier’s previous business venture – Iconic Matter.[5] In January 2017, Perlego raised £850,000 in a round of seed funding. This was led by angel investors from the UK, Belgium and France, with Zoopla founder Alex Chesterman and LoveFilm founder Simon Franks being notable participants.[6] In September 2018, Perlego raised a further £3,500,000 in a venture round led by Accelerated Digital Ventures, with further participation from its existing angel investors.[5] In November 2019, Perlego closed its Series A fundraising round, having raised a total of £7,000,000. The fundraising was led by Charlie Songhurst, Dedicated VC, and Thomas Leysen (Chairman of Mediahuis and Umicore), with Perlego’s existing investors all reinvesting on a pro-rata basis.[7] In March 2022, Perlego closed its Series B fundraising round, raising $50,000,000. The round was led by Mediahuis Ventures.[8]

Services

Perlego’s content library currently contains over 1,000,000 titles[9] in English, Italian, Spanish French and German, covering more than 900 separate disciplines from aeronautics to zoology. At the moment Perlego works with over 3,000 publishing houses who provide content for the service, including major academic publishers such as Wiley[10] and Bloomsbury.[10][11]

Users can access titles via their browser on desktop computers or download an application on mobile devices where it is also possible to download books for offline reading. Users can highlight and make notes.[12][13]

Perlego partnered with the University of West London in 2022 to provide its full catalogue to all UWL students.[14]

References

  1. ^ Heathman, Amelia (2018-09-10). "Perlego raises $4.8 million to become the 'Spotify for textbooks'". Evening Standard.
  2. ^ Rowe, Adam. "How 2 Big Textbook Subscription Services Are Teaming Up". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-02-18.
  3. ^ "Un Belge derrière Perlego, le Spotify du livre académique". L'Echo (in French). 12 March 2018.
  4. ^ "Rising price of textbooks reaches a tipping point". Financial Times. 15 May 2016.
  5. ^ a b "Gauthier Van Malderen, le Belge qui rêve d'un Spotify du livre" [Gauthier Van Malderen, the Belgian who dreams of a Spotify for books]. L'Echo (in French). 19 November 2019.
  6. ^ "Perlego raises $4.8M for its 'Spotify for textbooks'". TechCrunch. 10 September 2018.
  7. ^ "Perlego raises $9M Series A for its textbook subscription service". TechCrunch. 19 November 2019.
  8. ^ Lunden, Ingrid (March 15, 2022). "Perlego raises $50M to build out its vision of being the 'Spotify for textbooks'". TechCrunch. Retrieved March 15, 2022.
  9. ^ "Perlego raises $50M to build out its vision of being the 'Spotify for textbooks'". Tech crunch. 15 March 2022.
  10. ^ a b Wood, Heloise (July 4, 2017). "Bloomsbury signs up to new 'Spotify for textbooks'". The Bookseller.
  11. ^ Duke, Simon (January 27, 2020). "Perlego giving last word to Pearson, Wiley and Cengage textbooks". The Times.
  12. ^ Mitchell, Nic (31 August 2019). "Online fee-paying libraries tackle textbook inflation". University World News.
  13. ^ "Spotify for textbooks: Inside the revolutionary new book shop". The Independent. 13 July 2019. Archived from the original on 2022-05-25.
  14. ^ "Perlego ebook collection". UWL.
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