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Academia.edu is on a mission to accelerate the world's research. Their goal is to speed up research in every domain - finding a solution to climate change; finding cures for diseases; evolving artificial intelligence.
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4% employee growth in 12 months
Academia.edu is pitched as a social media platform to help researchers and academics share papers for free - with over 185 million registered users and over 30 million visitors per month, it has remained an active and popular platform since its founding in 2008.
The company has had a chequered relationship with the academics it proposes to serve (and the institutions it intends to disrupt). Some claim the new paywalled suite of features runs counter to the free and open-access model; others balk at their use of the .edu domain usually reserved for academic institutions (they registered before its use became restricted).
Perhaps to overcome these obstacles, and to give them an edge over the increasing preference for competitors like ResearchGate and Google Scholar, Academia.edu have taken some interesting steps. One was to develop a mobile app for the platform. Another was the early 2020 acquisition of entrepreneurial training and toolkit platform The Start-Up Gate. This latter decision could signal an exciting new developmental direction for Academia.edu - but thus far, the motivation remains unclear.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Feb 2022
$23m
SERIES D
Mar 2019
$16m
SERIES C
This company has top investors
Richard Price
(CEO)Studied PPE at Oxford, going on to complete a PhD in Philosophy. Founded two other businesses: LiveOut.co.uk, and PeopleRadar.co.uk. For 7 years was a Fellow of All Souls College at Oxford University.
Software Engineering
People, HR, Recruitment