Brainly is a company based in

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula, Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland un ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, with headquarters in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. It is
social learning platform where students and educators solve their academic problems together
Brainly's mission is to inspire students to share and explore knowledge in a collaborative community. It can also be used as a forum for students, parents, and teachers to ask and answer homework questions. The platform has elements of n in the form of points and ranks. It encourages users to engage in the online community by answering other users’ questions. , Brainly reported having 350 million monthly users, making it the world's most popular education app. __TOC__

History

Initially called Zadane.pl, the company was founded in 2009 in Poland by Michał Borkowski (current

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especiall ...

), Tomasz Kraus, and Łukasz Haluch. The first million unique monthly users were achieved within 6 months after the release. In January 2011, the company founded Znanija.com, the first international project dedicated to

Russian language Russian (russian: русский язык, russkij jazyk, link=no, ) is an East Slavic language mainly spoken in Russia. It is the native language of the Russians, and belongs to the Indo-European language family. It is one of four living E ...

speakers. Several other versions in multiple languages for the following markets included

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...

(eodev.com),

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived ...

and

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...

(brainly.lat), and

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

(brainly.com.br). Brainly was initially funded by the

co-founder An organizational founder is a person who has undertaken some or all of the formational work needed to create a new organization, whether it is a business, a charitable organization, a governing body, a school, a group of entertainers, or any othe ...

s, but raised funds from Point Nine Capital in 2012. In December 2013, seven new language versions of Brainly were released, including

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

, Indonesian,

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

n and more. In October 2014, the company announced that it had raised another round of funding from

General Catalyst Partners A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry. In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". OED O ...

Runa Capital Runa Capital is an international venture capital firm headquartered in Luxembourg that invests in deep tech ( AI, machine learning, middleware, open source, etc), cloud business software, fintech, edutech and digital health startups in ea ...

, and other venture capital firms. The total amount of the investment was $9 million, and the company opened headquarters in New York City. In May 2016, another funding round of $18 million of combined debt and equity was disclosed. In June 2016, Brainly acquired the US-based OpenStudy. In March or April 2017, Zadane.pl changed to Brainly. In October 2017, Brainly raised $14 million in a funding round led by

Kulczyk Investments Kulczyk Investments SA (former Kulczyk Investment House SA) is an international investment company, founded by Polish entrepreneur Jan Kulczyk in 2007, focusing on business opportunities in high-growth markets. The company's strategic sectors ar ...

. In January 2018, Brainly announced it had acquired the video education start-up, Bask, to bring video technology to the Brainly platform. In July 2019, Brainly raised $30 million in a Series C funding round led by Naspers, with participation from Runa Capital and Manta Ray. In 2020, the company experienced a significant increase in the number of users, caused by the global

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, from 150 million in 2019 to around 350 million in 2020. In 2020, numerous users on the Art of Problem Solving website found that Brainly had compromised the integrity of the

American Mathematics Competitions The American Mathematics Competitions (AMC) are the first of a series of competitions in secondary school mathematics that determine the United States team for the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). The selection process takes place over the ...

after posting the questions on its website with the correct answers. This led to Brainly updating its honor code.

Platform

Overview

Brainly provides a platform where students, parents, and teachers help others with homework questions. The website is intended to strengthen student's skills across subjects such as English, mathematics, science, and social studies. The platform is utilises a peer-to-peer system where students can ask questions, and answer them for other students. Ranks are provided to students who provide high-quality answers. Users are asked to provide an explanation and a source for the answers they provide. Questions are categorized by subject, respective of country and school level. Each user is given a fixed amount points upon registration, which are used to ask questions. Users can gain points by answering questions posted by others. A leaderboard exists for users who have answered the most questions or earned the most points. Brainly is moderated by both volunteers and staff and uses machine learning algorithms to filter its Knowledge Base. Moderators are trained users whose answers are excellent in content quality. Moderators are given permissions to respond to users who violate rules, including individuals who

plagiarize Plagiarism is the fraudulent representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 '' Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close imitation of the language and thought ...

, post spam, or post assessment questions.

Criticism

ToS;DR ( Terms of Service; Didn't Read), a project which analyzes terms of services ( ToS) and

privacy policies A privacy policy is a statement or legal document (in privacy law) that discloses some or all of the ways a party gathers, uses, discloses, and manages a customer or client's data. Personal information can be anything that can be used to identify ...

of websites, ranks Brainly at grade E.

References

{{Online social networking Companies based in New York City American social networking websites Internet properties established in 2009 Online companies of Poland Gamification Educational technology companies of the United States Subscription services Education companies of Poland Polish Limited Liability Companies Question-and-answer websites __NOTOC__

History

Platform

Overview

Criticism

See also

References