Studiosity was founded in 2003 with the vision of making one-to-one learning support accessible and affordable. Founder Jack Goodman made the decision to partner with largescale institutions in the education sector – universities, governments, public libraries and schools – to ensure equity of access and scaled social change. The service connects students to subject-matter specialists on-demand, for interactions based on formative feedback, scaffolding, and stringent academic integrity policy and transparency.

Key Statistic
273 educational partners
1.67 million students
38 full time staff
2 offices (Sydney, AU; Richmond, UK)

Jack Goodman, Founder and Executive Chair of Studiosity was interviewed as part of The Australian EdTech Market Census 2020 report.

Key success stories and tipping points
Key challenges
Impact of COVID-19
Funding
Looking to the future
Key learnings

Key success stories and tipping points

A number of factors have contributed to the success and growth of Studiosity. Internally, the team focused on building the platform’s capability in the early years to provide the best possible digital experience for students, as well as their team of online subject specialists. External factors including student-centric strategies and competitive, high-quality student experiences, widening higher education participation, and an increasing number of international students have led universities to strengthen their study and support offerings – driving demand for services such as 24/7 study help and personalised, formative writing feedback.

While the platform has experienced success with education providers, Studiosity also focuses on building relationships with not-for-profit organisations focussed on providing more equitable access to learning support.

Key challenges

The biggest initial challenge for Studiosity was establishing a new category of service in the Australian market, while targeting a highly evidence-driven sector. In response, the team took two main approaches. Firstly, appointing an Academic Advisory Board and a Chief Academic Officer. Secondly, encouraging independent research into its services and developing a formal, public research strategy into online learning efficacy. Every research study has shown a positive correlation – and in some cases, proven causation – between the use of Studiosity and one or more key measures of student success.

Impact of COVID-19

Due to established partnerships with higher education providers, Studiosity has been well positioned to serve the sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. Student engagement with Studiosity’s academic literacy platform has grown 50 percent year on year. This has been driven by increasing student engagement and student support requirements of current partners, who account for 70 percent of the Australian university market.

Funding

Due to limited venture capital funding available for EdTech in Australia during the early 2000s, Studiosity was bootstrapped by its founder. As the organisation expanded its user base and team, a select group of Australian investors provided additional capital in 2013. Until 2021, no other external funding had been raised by Studiosity, providing the flexibility to manage a longer sales cycle.

In February 2021, Studiosity announced it was welcoming two new investor groups onto its share register, following continued strong demand for its platform by universities both domestically and internationally. The new investors are CVC Emerging Companies Fund and Online Education Services (OES), part of the SEEK group (ASX:SEK). CVC and OES join Studiosity as minority investors, with the company’s plans for product development and international growth remaining unchanged. “For several years Studiosity has proven to be an exceptional educational and technology service provider,” said Denice Pitt, CEO of OES. “With our investment in the company, we expect to discover many synergies as we collaborate to deliver new services for universities and their students, across all the geographies in which OES operates.”

“From our first meeting we were impressed with Studiosity’s mission, solutions, market share, and leadership team,” said Christian Jensen, Portfolio Manager at CVC Emerging Companies Fund. “We look forward to working with the team to help the company reach its future milestones.”

Looking to the future

Studiosity’s mission is to increase life chances through personalised learning support. This mission is still the driver of its commercial model which seeks to deliver wide-scale social change equitably, through B2B partnerships with higher education providers and without limiting a student’s access due to their financial capacity. The team has expanded to international markets including New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and soon Canada.

In 2018, the team launched the world’s first digital peer-to-peer service staffed by a university’s own students and for their own students, with take-up in Australia, New Zealand and the UK since. In February 2020, Studiosity announced a five-year, $1 million investment and partnership with CSIRO’s Data61 to amplify human support with new AI functionality.

Key learnings

Studiosity’s success is grounded in customer experience principles, including the wellbeing of its online team and students. The team believes strongly in hiring the best talent (online specialists) without compromising quality of life or quality of service. The organisation believes this is in line with the uncompromising standards universities have for upholding the quality of their own student experience.

How has COVID-19 impacted the EdTech industry?
The Australian EdTech Market Census COVID-19 update
EduGrowth & Deloitte, 2021