5 minutes ago: EdTech startup Uptime raises $16M from summarizing other people's content

The battle for user attention in the digital sphere is getting tougher with each turn of the entertainment and mobile app industries. In 2015, Microsoft published a research showing that the time interval of our attention on one object had shrunk in 15 years from 12 seconds to eight. The research was criticized for being biased (at the time, the corporation was developing a system of short commercials) and insufficient arguments, but many experts confirmed that we can concentrate less and less on long formats and processes.

Clip thinking, which is still typical for millennials, under the influence of the development of the Internet and the ubiquitous access to it by Generation Z, is fundamentally changing the way we perceive information in the new century. The whole learning process is based on perception of information, which means that EdTech-projects today must either adjust to this time requirement or offer revolutionary solutions.

The startup Uptime chose the first option, which has already brought the project $16M in the Seed-round. The application, the essence of which the developers themselves denote as “knowledge hacking” gives access to the process of “micro-learning”. The platform contains a 5-minute quintessence of various educational content: books by experts, documentaries, and training courses. All of this is available in the format of “stories,” audio and text, at the end of which a full version of the source is offered for purchase.

According to Patrick Walker of Uptime, the EdTech market globally was valued at $89B last year, which, combined with the large number of people spending money on various paid educational content. This gave them the idea for the project. The more offerings in this market, the harder it is for the user to navigate it, the opportunity to try and understand the value and gives their free app.

The criticism of an aggregator like Uptime is in the parasitization of other people’s unique content. However, according to the cofounders of the project, all the authors they contacted were enthusiastic about the idea: for them it’s an opportunity to attract a new audience, and for the audience to find new content.