A 21-year-old has raised $1 million (£600,000) from the founders of Innocent smoothies and an investor in Skype to build an education app that will be “a student’s best friend”.
George Burgess founded company Education Apps aged just 17 while he was still studying at the prestigious west London private school. Burgess developed an app that lets students download educational ebooks and resources after struggling to find any apps to help him revise.
"Not being a developer myself I teamed up with someone abroad," says Burgess. "My teacher caught me emailing this guy in class and when I explained what I was doing he got really excited and started making content for our first app."
Burgess, from Earl’s Court, self-funded the business using money he earned from his lucrative eBay store. The app quickly took off and Burgess brokered deals with the likes of the BBC and publisher Pearson to offer their content through the app.
He continued to run the company while studying at Stanford University in America for 18 months and last year the app was downloaded almost a quarter of a million times.
Today venture capital firm Index Ventures and JamJar Investments, a fund set up by the founders of Innocent smoothies, announced they have invested over $1 million in Burgess’ app, which is being rebranded as Gojimo.
Analyse George Burgess's decision to use venture capital as a way of growing his business. [10]
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