Perlego, the subscription-based digital library providing unlimited access to academic titles, has secured £16.4 million in the latest funding round led by former Tesco CEO, Sir Terry Leahy. ITHAKA, the company behind JSTOR, the digital library of academic journals and books, has also supported Perlego on its mission to provide accessible learning materials. The investment, also backed by MediaHuis, Raine, KPN Ventures and the founders of Kahoot, takes its total raised to £70 million.
The latest raise will allow Perlego to expand its footprint, serve more learners and institutions internationally, and leverage AI to power new products designed to improve access to academic content. Today, Perlego announces the launch of Dialogo, a new AI-powered Research Assistant in Beta.
For many students, defining a topic and finding the right sources can be challenging and time-consuming. Traditional keyword searches lack the complexity required to understand context, often leaving students spending hours deciphering what is and is not relevant.
As a result, many students are turning to AI to accelerate their research methods. In fact, over three quarters of researchers report using an AI tool in their research. Despite AI chatbots being useful for quick topic explorations and creating general outlines, it is still hard to verify where the information comes from and whether it is accurate or academically credible.
The new investment will be used to further develop products like Dialogo, the AI-powered Research Assistant, a new conversational search experience designed to enhance the research process. The Research Assistant will deliver precise, contextually relevant and verifiable answers grounded in Perlego’s extensive library of 1+ million academic titles.
The new tool will allow students to find the most relevant sources within Perlego’s library of 1M+ academic titles, provide an overview of the results, and point students toward the full text of every title cited, building a bridge between students and the information.
Not only will the launch benefit students, but it will also contribute to building a fair, thriving ecosystem for publishers and authors through providing clear attribution, fair compensation, and content control.
Perlego, which was founded in 2017, is a subscription-based digital library on a mission to make learning more accessible by offering learners unlimited access to over 1 million educational ebooks. It is now the epitome of innovative European and global EdTech. Perlego partners with thousands of international publisher brands, offering an unparalleled catalogue of academic, professional and non-fiction content in six different languages from the likes of Cengage, Routledge, Cambridge University Press, Elsevier and Harvard University Press and is used in over 250 institutions worldwide.
