Middle school and high school students are both the easiest and most difficult audience. If you're building a neat little video game, chances are they'll download it right away. But if you're working on a learning app, like the team behind Revyze, try pitching it.
Still, the French startup defied the odds and attracted 1 million users in the past two years. In June, the Revyze app achieved the coveted #1 spot in Apple's App Store for free downloads.
One-third of French 9th graders used Revyze for last-minute study before their junior high school entrance exams. Around 2,000 content creators have shared 40,000 videos and quizzes within the app. It had a total of 150 million views.
All of this traction is helping the startup's funding pitch. Revyze on Monday announced the closing of a €5.5 million ($6 million at current exchange rates) seed round led by Speedinvest and Moonfire.
Motier Ventures, Station F (where the startup is currently headquartered), Supercell co-founder Illka Paananen, King co-founders Riccardo Zacconni and Sebastian Knusson, and Duolingo's Nickey Skarstad also participated.
Revyze previously raised a pre-seed round of €2 million (approximately $2.2 million) in 2022.
Seasons other than exams
However, Revyze's journey in the United States has not been so smooth and easy.
When we first covered the startup, its pitch was simple. It was called “Building the TikTok of Education.” TikTok has some great educational videos, but users' feeds are diluted with real-time true crime stories and, well, a bunch of everything (imagine this writer waving his hands in the air). please).
The team decided to launch the app in the U.S. in 2023. TikTok has faced various challenges in the market, with many U.S. parents concerned about content issues and local lawmakers even raising concerns about national security concerns. We are pursuing TikTok due to concerns. Therefore, Revyze's positioning as an alternative education-focused platform could work. At least on paper.
“I moved to the US exactly one year ago and spent four months there,” co-founder Guillaume Perrault told TechCrunch. “The aim was to replicate what we did in France and build the company around a period of stress and testing in the US. [the main college admissions test]”
But we've found that that doesn't necessarily lead to strong and consistent user growth. There may not have been enough content or it may not have been specific enough for the SAT test. “What we really learned was that we needed to reinvent the product before expanding to the U.S.,” he added.
In particular, the app worked well just before a stressful exam, but US users didn't open it for the rest of the year. So they went back to the drawing board to find a way to create more consistent engagement.
The Revyze team has improved the app experience so that it's more than just a vertical video feed to encourage learning for people who are stressed out about upcoming exams and spend every waking moment studying. The content is now curated in a way that allows you to immerse yourself in the app in a more relaxed way and concentrate more. In other words, it takes inspiration from both TikTok and Duolingo.
“We launched a product called Capsule with the idea that we want people to use the app for weekly testing,” Perrault said.
Community of Revyze Team and Content Creators Image Credit: Revyze
Capsules are designed by Revyze's top content creators based on a single topic. A collection of videos, quizzes, and summary sheets. This is similar to Duolingo lessons. There is a beginning, middle, and end, so you will feel a sense of accomplishment when you finish the capsule.
There are also some gamification features regarding capsules. “You come back every day and unlock capsules with the coins you earn by doing quizzes every day, kind of like streak frames on Duolingo,” co-founder Florent Sciberras told TechCrunch.
“[Capsules] It also enables top creators to monetize their content. We introduced a creator monetization program for the top 5% of each universe. Let's say you live in Michigan and took a Michigan-specific math exam. “I can say, 'I know what they need, I can create content, and I can earn some of the coins that are spent on my capsules,'” Sciberras said. Ta.
Everything is still free, but Revyze is adding paid access to additional features like personalized analytics and social features, and at some point, users can pay to unlock content faster. We plan to monetize the app.
Today, Revyze remains focused on finding product-market fit and growing its community of users and content creators. The community of top creators is incredibly diverse. Some are high-achieving teens who want to give back and share their knowledge, while others are teachers who want to reach a wider audience.
This is especially true when the startup invites its creator community to Station F. “A 10th grader is rubbing shoulders with a 45-year-old history teacher from Agen,” Sciberas said. “And they're all here with one goal in mind: to help students learn differently.”