Flashnotes, an online peer-to-peer platform for buying and selling class study materials, announced Wednesday it has raised $1.5 million in a seed round extension. New investor Nicole Stata of Boston Seed Capital, as well as returning investors Ryan Moore of Atlas Venture, Jordan Levy of Softbank Capital, and angels Deborah Quazzo, Jere Doyle and Bob Mason, contributed to this round.
With new funding, the Boston-based startup plans on expanding its campus presence around the country.
"We're excited to really go through the semester and ramp up the scale," Flashnotes CEO and co-founder Mike Matousek told BostInno, in regards of adding schools to Flashnotes' current list of more than 200 participating universities. "We're planning a large campus roll out, and we're continuing to learn from and with the students to create a better product."
Also aiding in Flashnotes' growth is the company's recent acquisition of NoteUtopia, a Californian online community for purchasing and selling class notes. With NoteUtopia comes additional university partnerships, class-specific content, student members and a strong West Coast presence that is key to Flashnotes continued advancement in the market.
“The inroads that NoteUtopia has made on the West Coast make a perfect match with the success already achieved by Flashnotes on the East Coast, and I am confident that our students will transition seamlessly and love sharing notes on the Flashnotes platform,” said Ryan Stevens, founder of NoteUtopia, in a release.
"[Stevens] has done a fantastic job building the NoteUtopia brand," Matousek said of the merger. "We look at ourselves as becoming the market leader in the space."
Earlier this year, Flashnotes brought on Jeff Kushmerek as Chief Product Officer and hired Kate Adams as VP of Marketing, both of whom came to the startup with impressive resumes. Prior to Flashnotes, Kushmerek designed and ran the Professional Services group for online video leader Brightcove, while Adams worked as a product director at Edvisors, a higher education resources network. Adams, in particular, will be key in helping Flashnotes break into new markets.
"I'm really going to lean on [Adams] this semester to create a marketing plan she feels comfortable executing," Matousek shared. To Kushmerek's credit, Flashnotes debuted its first video tutorial offering in April 2013, and has plans to launch more real-time video options come the fall semester.
Flashnotes was founded by students, for students. Matousek began Flashnotes with current company COO David Petruziello in 2010 at Kent State University. The platform enables students to help each other learn by creating a marketplace for course-specific material, such as notes, flashcards and tutorial videos. Florida State University, Rutgers, Penn State, Maryland and Ohio State make up Flashnotes' top five highest participating schools. In October 2012, the company raised $1.8 million from Atlas Venture, among other investors.
"In this new way that education is shifting towards eBooks, students are actually creating the content and learning the way they are most comfortable learning," Matousek said. "[With Flashnotes] they're helping each other learn."
