Brainly
Type of business | Private |
---|---|
Type of site | Social network service |
Available in | Hindi, English, Spanish, Portuguese (BR), French, Filipino (Tagalog), Turkish, Romanian, Russian, Polish, Italian, Indonesian |
Founded | September 2009 |
Headquarters | New York City, United States Kraków, Poland |
Area served | USA, India, Poland, Brazil, Indonesia, Latin America, Spain, Portugal, France, Romania, Ukraine, Philippines |
Created by | Michał Borkowski Tomasz Kraus Łukasz Haluch |
Key people | Michał Borkowski (CEO) |
Industry | Education |
URL | brainly.com |
Users | 15 million daily active users (2023)[1] |
Stable release | For iOS:- Version 4.55.0 (February 6, 2023)
For Android:- Version 5.125.0 (February 1, 2023) |
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Operating system | iOS, Android |
Size | 51 MB (Android) |
Website | iOS Android |
As of | February 2022 |
Brainly is an education company based in Kraków, Poland, with headquarters in New York City. It is an AI-powered homework help platform targeting students and parents. As of November 2020[update], Brainly reported having 15 million daily active users, making it the world's most popular education app.[2]
History[edit]
Initially called Zadane.pl, the company was founded in 2009 in Poland by Michał Borkowski (current chief executive officer), Tomasz Kraus, and Łukasz Haluch. The first million unique monthly users were achieved within 6 months after the release.[3]
In January 2011, the company founded Znanija.com, the first international project dedicated to Russian language speakers.[4] Several other versions in multiple languages for the following markets included Turkey (eodev.com), Latin America and Spain (brainly.lat), and Brazil (brainly.com.br).
Brainly was initially funded by the co-founders, but raised funds from Point Nine Capital in 2012.[5][6]
In December 2013, seven new language versions of Brainly were released, including English, Indonesian, Indian and more.
In October 2014, the company announced that it had raised another round of funding from General Catalyst Partners, Runa Capital, and other venture capital firms.[7] The total amount of the investment was $9 million, and the company opened headquarters in New York City.[8][9]
In May 2016, another funding round of $18 million of combined debt and equity was disclosed.[10] In June 2016, Brainly acquired the US-based OpenStudy.[11][12]
In March or April 2017, Zadane.pl changed to Brainly.[13]
In October 2017, Brainly raised $14 million in a funding round led by Kulczyk Investments.[14]
In January 2018, Brainly announced it had acquired the video education start-up, Bask,[15] to bring video technology to the Brainly platform.[16]
In July 2019, Brainly raised $30 million in a Series C funding round led by Naspers, with participation from Runa Capital and Manta Ray.[17]
In 2020, the company experienced a significant increase in the number of users, caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic, from 150 million in 2019 to around 350 million in 2020.[2][18]
In 2020, numerous users on the Art of Problem Solving website found that Brainly had compromised the integrity of the American Mathematics Competitions after posting the questions on its website with the correct answers. This led to Brainly updating its honor code.[19]
In 2023, Brainly released numerous AI-powered products, including an AI Tutor as well as personalization tools. The company has also announced its work on new AI products for features. [20]
Platform[edit]
Overview[edit]
Brainly provides a platform where students, parents, and teachers help others with homework questions. The website is intended to strengthen student's skills across subjects such as English, mathematics, science, and social studies. The platform is utilises a peer-to-peer system where students can ask questions, and answer them for other students. Ranks are provided to students who provide high-quality answers. Users are asked to provide an explanation and a source for the answers they provide. Questions are categorized by subject, respective of country and school level.[21] Each user is given a fixed amount points upon registration, which are used to ask questions. Users can gain points by answering questions posted by others.[22] A leaderboard exists for users who have answered the most questions or earned the most points.
Brainly is moderated by both volunteers and staff and uses machine learning algorithms[23] to filter its Knowledge Base.[24][25] Moderators are trained users whose answers are excellent in content quality. Moderators are given permissions to respond to users who violate rules, including individuals who plagiarize, post spam, or post assessment questions.[citation needed]
Criticism[edit]
ToS;DR (Terms of Service; Didn't Read), a project which analyzes terms of services (ToS) and privacy policies of websites, ranks Brainly at grade D.[26]
See also[edit]
- Economy of Poland
- Common Sense Education
- Oklahoma Watch: Students find shortcuts, cheats as virtual schooling drags on in pandemic
- Is Brainly a tutoring solution, or the next level of cheating?
References[edit]
- ^ "Education app becomes world's number one after surge in popularity caused by pandemic". Archived from the original on 28 December 2020. Retrieved 27 November 2020.
- ^ a b Westerby, Nick (2020-11-26). "Education app becomes world's number one after surge in popularity caused by pandemic". Retrieved 2020-11-27.
- ^ Petrovich, Liesha (2016-12-22). "With 80 Million Users, Poland-based Brainly is Changing Education". HuffPost. BuzzFeed. Archived from the original on 2016-12-23. Retrieved 2019-01-31.
- ^ Degeler, Andrii (2014-03-17). "Crowdsourced School Homework: Brainly Plans to Teach the US". TNW. Archived from the original on 2014-03-21. Retrieved 2018-06-18.
- ^ O'Hear, Steve (2012-09-12). "Social Learning Network Brainly Raises $500K From Point Nine Capital, Angels". TechCrunch.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "Brainly". Point Nine Capital. Archived from the original on 2014-05-29.
- ^ O'Hear, Steve (2014-10-15). "Schoolwork Q&A Site Brainly Scores $9M Series A To Answer The U.S. Expansion Question". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 2014-10-15. Retrieved 2016-04-18.
- ^ "Brainly Expands to U.S. with $9M Venture Funding Led by General Catalyst". CNBC. 2014-10-15. Archived from the original on 2014-10-26. Retrieved 2017-09-08.
- ^ Pofeldt, Elaine (2015-12-07). "The rise of billion-dollar European unicorns". CNBC. Archived from the original on 2016-03-08. Retrieved 2016-04-18.
- ^ "Form D: Notice of Exempt Offering of Securities". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 2016-05-25. Archived from the original on 2016-10-05. Retrieved 2016-10-03.
- ^ "Brainly Acquires US Social Learning Platform, OpenStudy". EdSurge. 2016-06-14. Retrieved 2017-10-18.
- ^ "Social Learning Platform OpenStudy Joins the Brainly Community". Yahoo! Finance. 2016-06-14. Retrieved 2016-10-03.
- ^ "Zadane.pl". Zadane.pl (in Polish). Archived from the original on 2017-04-30.
- ^ "EdTech Startup Brainly Closes $14 Million". NewsCenter.io. 2017-10-26. Retrieved 2017-11-02.
- ^ "Bask". Bask. Archived from the original on 2019-01-30. Retrieved 2019-01-31.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ O'Hear, Steve (2018-01-25). "Brainly acquires Bask to add video to its peer-to-peer learning platform for students". TechCrunch.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Lunden, Ingrid (2015-07-19). "Brainly, a crowdsourced homework helper for students, raises $30M to expand in the US". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 2020-12-28. Retrieved 2019-08-22.
- ^ "Brainly raises $80M as its platform for crowdsourced homework help balloons to 350M users". TechCrunch. 17 December 2020. Retrieved 2022-03-12.
- ^ "Brainy Startups". brainy.pk. Retrieved 2022-07-17.
- ^ Staff, eSchool News (2023-04-17). "Brainly Announces Beta Access to New AI Features, Developed with OpenAI's GPT-4 for Personalized Learning". eSchool News. Retrieved 2023-10-31.
- ^ Coleman, Alison (2014-05-16). "Global Ed-Tech Disruption From Poland: Crowdsourced Homework". Forbes. Archived from the original on 2014-05-18. Retrieved 2017-08-25.
- ^ "Brainly – Leveraging the wisdom of the crowds to do your homework". Digital Innovation and Transformation. Retrieved 2021-12-28.
- ^ "How Brainly's social learning model is changing education through community - and algorithms". diginomica.com. 2016-07-15. Retrieved 2022-03-12.
- ^ Sawers, Paul (2019-07-25). "With 150 million users, Brainly raises $30 million to expand its social learning platform in the U.S." VentureBeat. Archived from the original on 2019-07-26. Retrieved 2020-09-01.
- ^ "Who are Moderators?". Brainly. Archived from the original on 2018-02-05. Retrieved 2020-09-01.
- ^ "Brainly -- Terms of Service; Didn't Read". ToS;DR. Retrieved 2022-04-01.
- Companies based in New York City
- American social networking websites
- Internet properties established in 2009
- Online companies of Poland
- Gamification
- Educational technology companies of the United States
- Subscription services
- Education companies of Poland
- Polish Limited Liability Companies
- Question-and-answer websites