Brainly, Inc.
Type of businessPrivate
Type of site
Social network service
Available inHindi, English, Spanish, Portuguese (BR), French, Filipino (Tagalog), Turkish, Romanian, Russian, Polish, Italian, Indonesian, Ukrainian
FoundedSeptember 2009; 14 years ago (September 2009)
HeadquartersNew York City, United States
Kraków, Poland
Area servedUSA, India, Poland, Brazil, Indonesia, Latin America, Spain, Portugal, France, Romania, Ukraine, Philippines
Created byMichał Borkowski
Tomasz Kraus
Łukasz Haluch
Key peopleMichał Borkowski (CEO)
IndustryEducation
URLhttps://brainly.com/ https://brainly.pl/
Users15 million daily active users (2023)[1]
Brainly
Stable release
For iOS:- Version 4.55.0 (February 6, 2023)

For Android:- Version 5.125.0 (February 1, 2023)

Operating systemiOS, Android
Size51 MB (Android)
WebsiteiOS Android
As ofFebruary 2022

Brainly is an education company based in Kraków, Poland, with headquarters in New York City. It is an AI-powered homework help platform targeting students and parents. As of November 2020, Brainly reported having 15 million daily active users, making it the world's most popular education app.[2] In 2024, FlexOS reported Brainly as the #1 Generative AI Tool in the education category and the #6 Generative AI Tool overall.[3] Also in 2024, Andreessen Horowitz reported Brainly as #6 in the Top 50 Gen AI Mobile Apps by monthly active users.[4]

History

Initially called Zadane.pl, the company was founded in 2009 in Poland by Michał Borkowski (current chief executive officer), Tomasz Kraus, and Łukasz Haluch. The first million unique monthly users were achieved within 6 months after the release.[5]

In January 2011, the company founded Znanija.com, the first international project dedicated to Russian language speakers.[6] Several other versions in multiple languages for the following markets included Turkey (eodev.com), Latin America and Spain (brainly.lat), and Brazil (brainly.com.br).

Brainly was initially funded by the co-founders, but raised funds from Point Nine Capital in 2012.[7][8]

In December 2013, seven new language versions of Brainly were released, including English, Indonesian, Indian and more.

In October 2014, the company announced that it had raised another round of funding from General Catalyst Partners, Runa Capital, and other venture capital firms.[9] The total amount of the investment was $9 million, and the company opened headquarters in New York City.[10][11]

In May 2016, another funding round of $18 million of combined debt and equity was disclosed.[12] In June 2016, Brainly acquired the US-based OpenStudy.[13][14]

In March or April 2017, Zadane.pl changed to Brainly.[15]

In October 2017, Brainly raised $14 million in a funding round led by Kulczyk Investments.[16]

In January 2018, Brainly announced it had acquired the video education start-up, Bask,[17] to bring video technology to the Brainly platform.[18]

In July 2019, Brainly raised $30 million in a Series C funding round led by Naspers, with participation from Runa Capital and Manta Ray.[19]

In 2020, the company experienced a significant increase in the number of users, caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic, from 150 million in 2019 to around 350 million in 2020.[2][20]

In 2020, numerous users on the Art of Problem Solving website found that Brainly had compromised the integrity of the American Mathematics Competitions after posting the questions on its website with the correct answers. This led to Brainly updating its honor code.[21]

In December 2020, Brainly raised $80 million in a Series D funding round led by Learn Capital, with participation from previous investors Prosus Ventures, Runa Capital, MantaRay and General Catalyst Partners.[22]

In 2023, Brainly released numerous AI-powered products, including an AI Tutor as well as personalization tools. The company has also announced its work on new AI products for features. [23]

In early 2024, Brainly announced the release of Test Prep, an AI-powered study planner for students across all academic subjects.[24]

Platform

Overview

Brainly provides a platform where students, parents, and teachers help others with homework questions. The website is intended to strengthen student's skills across subjects such as English, mathematics, science, and social studies. The platform is utilises a peer-to-peer system where students can ask questions, and answer them for other students. Ranks are provided to students who provide high-quality answers. Users are asked to provide an explanation and a source for the answers they provide. Questions are categorized by subject, respective of country and school level.[25] Each user is given a fixed amount points upon registration, which are used to ask questions. Users can gain points by answering questions posted by others.[26] A leaderboard exists for users who have answered the most questions or earned the most points.

Brainly is moderated by both volunteers and staff and uses machine learning algorithms[27] to filter its Knowledge Base.[28][29] Moderators are trained users whose answers are excellent in content quality. Moderators are given permissions to respond to users who violate rules, including individuals who plagiarize, post spam, or post assessment questions.[citation needed]

More recently, Brainly has implemented AI across many features of its platform, including the “Tailor to Me” function for personalizing questions answered by the community and the AI Tutor. The AI-powered technology, connected to Brainly’s Knowledge Base, gives its users access to personalized learning assistance.

Criticism

ToS;DR (Terms of Service; Didn't Read), a project which analyzes terms of services (ToS) and privacy policies of websites, ranks Brainly at grade D.[30]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Education app becomes world's number one after surge in popularity caused by pandemic". Archived from the original on 28 December 2020. Retrieved 27 November 2020.
  2. ^ a b Westerby, Nick (2020-11-26). "Education app becomes world's number one after surge in popularity caused by pandemic". Retrieved 2020-11-27.
  3. ^ Rossum, Daan van. "[Report] Generative AI Top 150: The World's Most Used AI Tools (Feb 2024)". FlexOS. Retrieved 2024-03-18.
  4. ^ Moore, Olivia (2024-03-13). "The Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps". Andreessen Horowitz. Retrieved 2024-03-18.
  5. ^ Petrovich, Liesha (2016-12-22). "With 80 Million Users, Poland-based Brainly is Changing Education". HuffPost. BuzzFeed. Archived from the original on 2016-12-23. Retrieved 2019-01-31.
  6. ^ Degeler, Andrii (2014-03-17). "Crowdsourced School Homework: Brainly Plans to Teach the US". TNW. Archived from the original on 2014-03-21. Retrieved 2018-06-18.
  7. ^ O'Hear, Steve (2012-09-12). "Social Learning Network Brainly Raises $500K From Point Nine Capital, Angels". TechCrunch.[permanent dead link]
  8. ^ "Brainly". Point Nine Capital. Archived from the original on 2014-05-29.
  9. ^ O'Hear, Steve (2014-10-15). "Schoolwork Q&A Site Brainly Scores $9M Series A To Answer The U.S. Expansion Question". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 2014-10-15. Retrieved 2016-04-18.
  10. ^ "Brainly Expands to U.S. with $9M Venture Funding Led by General Catalyst". CNBC. 2014-10-15. Archived from the original on 2014-10-26. Retrieved 2017-09-08.
  11. ^ Pofeldt, Elaine (2015-12-07). "The rise of billion-dollar European unicorns". CNBC. Archived from the original on 2016-03-08. Retrieved 2016-04-18.
  12. ^ "Form D: Notice of Exempt Offering of Securities". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 2016-05-25. Archived from the original on 2016-10-05. Retrieved 2016-10-03.
  13. ^ "Brainly Acquires US Social Learning Platform, OpenStudy". EdSurge. 2016-06-14. Retrieved 2017-10-18.
  14. ^ "Social Learning Platform OpenStudy Joins the Brainly Community". Yahoo! Finance. 2016-06-14. Retrieved 2016-10-03.
  15. ^ "Zadane.pl". Zadane.pl (in Polish). Archived from the original on 2017-04-30.
  16. ^ "EdTech Startup Brainly Closes $14 Million". NewsCenter.io. 2017-10-26. Retrieved 2017-11-02.
  17. ^ "Bask". Bask. Archived from the original on 2019-01-30. Retrieved 2019-01-31.((cite web)): CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  18. ^ O'Hear, Steve (2018-01-25). "Brainly acquires Bask to add video to its peer-to-peer learning platform for students". TechCrunch.[permanent dead link]
  19. ^ Lunden, Ingrid (2015-07-19). "Brainly, a crowdsourced homework helper for students, raises $30M to expand in the US". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 2020-12-28. Retrieved 2019-08-22.
  20. ^ "Brainly raises $80M as its platform for crowdsourced homework help balloons to 350M users". TechCrunch. 17 December 2020. Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  21. ^ "Brainy Startups". brainy.pk. Retrieved 2022-07-17.
  22. ^ Lunden, Ingrid (2020-12-17). "Brainly raises $80M as its platform for crowdsourced homework help balloons to 350M users". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-03-18.
  23. ^ Staff, eSchool News (2023-04-17). "Brainly Announces Beta Access to New AI Features, Developed with OpenAI's GPT-4 for Personalized Learning". eSchool News. Retrieved 2023-10-31.
  24. ^ Brainly. "Introducing Test Prep". Brainly.com.
  25. ^ Coleman, Alison (2014-05-16). "Global Ed-Tech Disruption From Poland: Crowdsourced Homework". Forbes. Archived from the original on 2014-05-18. Retrieved 2017-08-25.
  26. ^ "Brainly – Leveraging the wisdom of the crowds to do your homework". Digital Innovation and Transformation. Retrieved 2021-12-28.
  27. ^ "How Brainly's social learning model is changing education through community - and algorithms". diginomica.com. 2016-07-15. Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  28. ^ Sawers, Paul (2019-07-25). "With 150 million users, Brainly raises $30 million to expand its social learning platform in the U.S." VentureBeat. Archived from the original on 2019-07-26. Retrieved 2020-09-01.
  29. ^ "Who are Moderators?". Brainly. Archived from the original on 2018-02-05. Retrieved 2020-09-01.
  30. ^ "Brainly -- Terms of Service; Didn't Read". ToS;DR. Retrieved 2022-04-01.


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