$1.6 Million Investment Means A Wider Reach for OneClass’ Social Learning

Ever felt unprepared for an upcoming exam? Feel like the notes you took in class miss the mark? If you’ve searched online for help to your lecture and study woes, chances are you’ve come across Toronto-based OneClass, the online social learning website designed for post-secondary students across North America. OneClass takes the age-old networking system of students sharing notes and cramming for exams together but offers it in an online format, allowing a broader audience to more easily share their resources.

OneClass, formerly NoteSolution, is currently active in 50 schools across the U.S. and Canada and has content for 10,000 post-secondary classes. However, a recent injection of investment funds means OneClass developers can expand the scope of their site to accommodate more students than ever before. The planned expansion will put OneClass well on its way to becoming the largest interactive library for educational content.

Through Series A round investments from Asian private equity firm SAIF Partners, and from Real Ventures and other existing investors, OneClass has raised $1.6 million that will be used to rapidly expand their existing network of schools and students. While it currently caters to courses and components in  50 colleges in North America, the investment injection means being able to expand to ten times as many schools – and ten times as many students, as well.

OneClass users share their lecture, textbook and exam notes online to help their peers study and prepare for exams or complement their own in-class notes. There’s incentive for students to participate and provide quality content: users accumulate credits redeemable credits every time their content is downloaded, or they refer a friend of classmate to the site. The credits can then be redeemed in any number of ways, from free document downloading to gift cards for their favorite retail stores.

With the recent investment, OneClass wants to expand its business to new schools – including, eventually, the untapped high school and graduate student market. They intend to keep the same cost-effective formula as it presently follows:  bypassing the middleman and delivering content directly to students, thus avoiding the costly task of trying to integrate with a school’s existing management system.

“Rather than building for professors or institutions, all of our features are designed to make sharing content frictionless for the students,” says CEO Jack Tai. “By focusing on capturing the knowledge passed down from student to student, we’re able to accumulate content at scale that will benefit future generations of students.”

Students who want to try the service can visit the OneClass website and peruse the vast library of available resources.