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Organization Name: Socratic

Focus Area: Growing Learners
Region: Global
Sector: For Profit
Investment Year: 2015
Status: Exit
Socratic, or Socratic.org, is an education tech company that offers a mobile app for students. The app uses AI technology to help students with their homework by providing educational resources like videos, definitions, Q&A, and more. Socratic's stated mission is to Make Learning Easier. Socratic was acquired by Google in 2018.

Why We Invested

Today, when a student gets stuck working on homework or studying for a test, they search Google or YouTube. However, when students “ask the Internet” for help, what they find can be unreliable and poorly organized. Some answers are provided in isolation, without references to educational materials, while in other cases, particularly in STEM subjects, online content is taught at the PhD level. Socratic built an online community that (i) allowed students to ask questions and search for answers, and (ii) allowed teachers to upload video lessons and educational content for high school and college subjects.