A London-based self-proclaimed “knowledge hacking” app of the EdTech industry, Uptime, secured US $16 million in a seed investment announced on the 10th of February, 2021. Led by its founders Jack Bekhor, Jamie True (who previously founded Lifeworks) and Patrick Walker (an ex Facebook and YouTube executive), this is the second official investment carried out by Uptime after their initial fundraising of US $1 million in January 2019. Other private investors include Sir Terry Leahy, Lord David Alliance and Federal Street SPV. The startup identifies as a ‘micro-learning’ platform offering 5 minute knowledge hack contents from courses, documentaries and books.
Purpose of the Investment
The round is meant to improve its app features and expand the reach of Uptime’s services. Accordingly, the startup plans to leverage their resources to facilitate a country-wide promotion of their unique innovation that connects knowledge seekers with the most relevant content to their search.
Products & Services offered
Uptime was established in the quest to provide a platform that makes knowledge affordable, exciting and convenient while abolishing all forms of negativity, advertising and doom-surfing. The startup provides an application that offers 5 minutes knowledge hacks from the world’s very best courses, books and documentaries. In return for the use of their work, content creators are presented with a new way of reaching audiences who may, upon discretion; move on to purchase their content. The hacks are available in various formats for the convenience of users. They include:
- A custom-designed visual story format
- Audio format and
- Text format
Uptime is designed to help users save time in the search for the best knowledge sources. It instead leverages the power of e-learning facilities as well as the skill and experience of industry experts in providing relevant insights gotten from thousands of sources and then encoded in a 5 minute hack. Another great feature of the app is the ability to share hacks on social platforms with just the click of a button.
In essence, Uptime’s service is a combination of lead generation for content creators as well as content aggregation and discovery. According to their pitch, the app was innovatively designed to suit the “short attention span” of Gen Z and millennials. The company also explained, “At the end of every hack, users are presented with the option to watch the full documentary, sign up for the course from the main source or buy the book.”
Growth and Trends
Having just been launched on IOS in January, the development of Uptime is gaining speed in preparation for a promising future. The global EdTech market is also gaining serious speed and traction augmented by the current pandemic. Valued at over US $89 billion last year, the market has reached an all time high with no limits in the foreseeable future. A major issue with the industry is the time and resources wasted in the selection of content by users trying to build up their skills through virtual training. This can result in a potential overload of information for users to sift through in trying to find materials with the highest perceived value and quality to suit their needs.
In the words of co-founder of Uptime, Patrick Walker, “With Uptime, we wanted to build something that could be a one-stop store for knowledge. Instead of examining endless websites of digital courses, bestseller lists, and video platforms for documentaries, Uptime provides the best content from only the most trusted professionals, companies and sources. Users can select the fields they’re interested in and obtain access to the key elements of the content in snackable, easy-to-watch visual stories, audio and text”.
Company Profile
Uptime is an e-learning platform designed for users with short amounts of time, energy and resources needed to obtain full content packages. They also help to provide new audiences for the best experts by offering a sneak peak of their work to people. Founded in September 2018, the startup is headquartered in London United Kingdom and has so far averaged US $17 million in just 2 rounds.
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