https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/15/perlego-raises-50m-to-build-out-its-vision-of-being-the-spotify-for-textbooks/

Spotify helped pave the way for a new model for consumers to listen to music: pay a monthly fee to stream whatever you want, with no need to own any physical or digital versions of it. Now, a startup called Perlego, which has been applying that concept to academic textbooks, has picked up $50 million to expand its business after seeing its platform boom through Covid-19. The London startup currently has 400,000 paying subscribers who get all-you-can-read access to some 850,000 titles — textbooks, fiction and other literature that students are assigned as coursework at universities and other higher-learning institutions. That catalogue, the startup says, makes Perlego the largest online textbook subscription service in the world.

Mediahuis Ventures, the VC arm of European media group Mediahuis, led the round with participation also from Raine Ventures, the VC arm of Raine Group (the investment bank that’s overseeing the sale of Chelsea FC), and Evli Growth Partners. This round, a Series B, also had angel investors, such as the two co-founders of Kahoot, Jamie Brooker and Johan Brand, by way of their We Are Human fund; as well as backing from “strategic” publishers.