London ‘knowledge hacking’ app Uptime raises $3m from Youtube founder
London-based education app Uptime has raised a further $3m (£2.1m) in a star-studded investment round from backers including Youtube co-founder Chad Hurley.
Uptime, which describes itself as a “knowledge hacking app”, raised the funds as an extension to its seed round, bringing its total raised so far to $19m.
Hurley, who is also an investor in Leeds United Football Club, is the latest big name to back the Battersea-based startup.
Hashtag inventor Chris Messina and Hollywood talent manager Mark Gillespie also took part in the round, while American beauty tycoon Huda Kattan invested via her venture capital fund HB Investments.
Uptime uses artificial intelligence to distill top books, courses and documentaries into five-minute summaries.
Its platform boasts more than 1,700 pieces of content, with Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming and Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep among its most popular. In recent weeks it has also seen rising interest in courses relating to NFTs and blockchain.
The app has now reached 100,000 users in the 100 days since it launched in February.
It operates on a tiered membership model, offering a basic overview to free users and unlimited access to paid subscribers.
The company also earns a commission via an affiliate scheme when users go on to purchase full content from publishers.
Uptime said its app attracts high levels of user engagement, with average session lengths of eight minutes putting it second only to Tiktok.
The company, which counts former Tesco chief executive Sir Terry Leahy among its existing investors, said it will use the fresh funding to help develop the platform and accelerate global growth.
“We’ve been thrilled with the support for Uptime so far, both from consumers and investors,” said co-founder Jamie True.
“Our users are regularly coming back to Uptime to find content that engages and educates them. From learning about technical subjects such as NFTs and Bitcoin to topics closer to home including relationships, parenting and anxiety, Uptime users are gleaning key insights from our top books, courses and documentary hacks.”