From Bloomberg Technology:
Top Hat, the Canadian education technology startup, completed a new round of funding to give it more firepower to go after textbook publishers like Pearson Plc.
The $22.5 million round is Top Hat’s biggest yet and brings its total funding to about $40 million, the Toronto-based company said in a statement Wednesday.
. . . .
Top Hat is one of a handful of startups trying to find ways to disrupt the traditional textbook publishing industry, dominated by companies like Pearson, Cengage Learning Inc. and McGraw-Hill Education Inc., which is owned by Apollo Global Management LLC. All of these firms have added digital educational materials to their range of products, but the transition has been rocky.
. . . .
Even as the big publishers work to increase the proportion of sales that come from digital products, they’re still largely dependent on physical books.
That’s a weakness Top Hat Chief Executive Officer Mike Silagadze said he’s trying to exploit. He started by selling software tools to professors that help them engage their students, such as smartphone apps that let them tell lecturers if they understand new concepts in real-time. The company, which launched in 2009, has 2 million students using its products.
The next step is to go directly after the textbooks and digital course content made by Pearson and McGraw, Silagadze said in an interview. In November, they launched an online content marketplace, where professors can create course materials and sell it around the world. The idea is to cut out the publisher and let professors sell directly to students and each other, Silagadze said.
“It fundamentally breaks the publisher’s traditional model of producing content,” he said. “Our aim is to disrupt the paradigm the publishers have created over the last 100 years.”
. . . .
The industry “has been dominated by really traditional publishers that come exclusively from the content side and not the technology side,” Wenger said in an interview. His son’s Intro to German textbook cost $230.
“That era is coming to an end,” he said.
Link to the rest at Bloomberg Technology and thanks to T.K. for the tip.
Several universities in the US are working on similar strategies, using Carnegie Endowment grants. Perhaps there is room for collaboration between tech companies like TopHat and universities, who have a vested interest in controlling textbook costs, as well as the quality of the content.
I’m not so sure the universities have a vested interest in controlling textbook costs, except to keep them high, as they all run their own bookstores. They love high prices.
I like geology and have taken a number of classes in it, so was on Amazon the other day trying to find some more in-depth geology books to buy for my iPad as I’m beyond the enthusiast’s stage.
Page after page of interesting-looking geology books, but not one was under $50 and most were in the $150+ range with some over $300. Of course, these are textbooks that students are forced to buy to take certain classes for their major. They were also the only texts that had the level of knowledge I wanted.
It really pi**ed me off, primarily because it’s doing a HUGE service to the field of science. How can people be educated when they can’t afford it? This follows for many fields, but science is very important right now with Trump’s openly declared war on it, as well as global warming. These greedy publishers deserve to fall, and all the best to Top Hat. I hope they’re successful beyond their wildest dreams.
Any of these books you wanted available used at http://www.fetchbook.info?
Thanks for that link. It looks handy for comparing, but none of the books I wanted are any cheaper anywhere else because the publishers have them all locked up.
For example, “Sedimentary Geology” by Donald Prothero is a mere $65 on Amazon, while up to $190 elsewhere. Still not even vaguely reasonable.