Center and excessive schoolers are each the simplest and most tough viewers. If you happen to’re creating a neat little online game, chances are high they’re prepared to obtain it instantly. But when, just like the group behind Revyze, you’re engaged on a studying app, good luck pitching them.
And but, the French startup has defied the percentages and attracted a million customers over the past two years. In June, the Revyze app even reached the coveted #1 spot free of charge downloads in Apple’s App Retailer.
One-third of all ninth graders in France turned to Revyze for some last-minute schoolwork earlier than the nationwide center college examination. Round 2,000 content material creators have shared 40,000 movies and quizzes within the app. They’ve attracted 150 million views in whole.
All that traction has helped the startup’s fundraising pitch. On Monday Revyze introduced shut of a seed spherical of €5.5 million ($6 million at present trade charges) led by Speedinvest and Moonfire.
Motier Ventures, Station F (the place the startup is at present headquartered), Supercell co-founder Illka Paananen, King co-founders Riccardo Zacconni and Sebastian Knusson, and Duolingo’s Nickey Skarstad additionally participated.
Revyze beforehand raised a €2 million pre-seed spherical (round $2.2 million) again in 2022.
Non-exam season
But it hasn’t been such a easy and straightforward experience for Revyze over within the U.S.
Once we first lined the startup its pitch was easy: to construct the TikTok of schooling. Whereas there are some nice studying movies on TikTok, customers’ feeds are diluted with real-time true crime tales and, er, a bunch of the whole lot (think about this author waving his hand within the air).
In 2023, the group determined to launch the app within the U.S. TikTok has varied challenges out there, with many U.S. dad and mom having considerations about content material points and native lawmakers additionally going after TikTok over nationwide safety considerations. So Revyze’s positioning as a substitute — education-focused — platform may work. Not less than on paper.
“I moved to the U.S. precisely one yr in the past and I spent 4 months there,” co-founder Guillaume Perrot instructed TechCrunch. “The intention was to copy what we’d completed in France, to construct the corporate round these durations of stress and exams within the U.S., which is the SAT [the main college admissions test].”
However they discovered that doesn’t essentially result in sturdy and constant consumer progress. Perhaps there wasn’t sufficient content material or it wasn’t particular sufficient for SAT checks. “What we truly realized was that we needed to rework the product earlier than we may attempt to broaden to the U.S.” he added.
Specifically, whereas the app labored nicely proper earlier than a demanding examination, U.S. customers didn’t open it throughout the remainder of the yr. So that they went again to the drafting board to search out methods to create extra constant engagement.
The Revyze group refined the app expertise in order that it’s not only a feed of vertical movies that push studying at people who find themselves confused sufficient about their looming exams to spend each waking minute studying. Now, content material is curated in a approach so as to dip into the app in a extra laid again approach or be extra targeted. In different phrases, it now attracts inspiration from each TikTok and Duolingo.
“We’ve launched a product referred to as capsules with the concept we’ll attempt to get individuals to make use of the app each week for his or her checks,” Perrot stated.
Capsules are designed by Revyze’s high content material creators round a single matter. It’s a group of movies, quizzes and abstract sheets. It really works a bit like a lesson in Duolingo. There’s a starting, a center and an finish, which signifies that you get a way of accomplishment whenever you end a capsule.
There are additionally some gamification options round capsules. “You unlock a capsule with cash that you simply earn by coming again each day — a bit like on Duolingo with the streak flame — and by doing quizzes each day,” co-founder Florent Sciberras instructed TechCrunch.
“[Capsules] additionally enable high creators to monetize their content material. We’ve launched a creator monetization program for our high 5% for every universe. Let’s say you reside in Michigan and also you’ve taken your math examination, which is a bit Michigan-specific. You’ll be able to say, ‘I do know what they want, I can create the content material and I’ll earn a proportion of the cash which are spent on my capsule,’” Sciberras stated.
Whereas the whole lot remains to be free, Revyze plans to monetize its app in some unspecified time in the future by including paid entry to additional options, reminiscent of customized analytics and social options, and letting customers pay to unlock content material extra shortly.
Proper now, Revyze remains to be very a lot targeted on discovering product-market match and rising its communities of customers and content material creators. The neighborhood of high creators is surprisingly numerous. There are some, top-performing youngsters that need to give again and share information but additionally some academics who need to attain a wider viewers.
It’s significantly seen when the startup invitations its creator neighborhood to Station F. “You’ve received the tenth-grader rubbing shoulders with the 45-year-old historical past instructor from Agen,” Sciberras stated. “And so they’re all right here along with one purpose in thoughts: serving to college students be taught in a different way.”
