A digital education champion is forming in Europe.

The Viennese start-up Go Student, which offers tutoring lessons via webcam in its core business, has received 300 million euros from well-known investors and wants to expand into related services.

Investors assessed the company as worth 3 billion euros after Go Student received a billion-dollar valuation for the first time just seven months ago.

Bastian Benrath

Editor in business.

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The donors include Prosus, the investment arm of the South African Naspers Group, and Deutsche Telekom.

The Japanese technology investor Softbank and the Chinese company Tencent are also involved.

Go Student, founded in 2016, now offers digital tutoring for all subjects, grades and school types in 22 countries - the company recently sold 1.5 million tutoring units worldwide every month.

The core markets with the highest sales are Germany, Austria and Switzerland, but Go Student is also represented in Latin America, Canada and the USA.

Artificial intelligence and native teachers

The company also uses cross-border synergies: for example, native-speaking teachers, for example from Great Britain, are also used for English tuition.

Parents can subscribe to the tutoring for six months, one or two years and pay prices that depend on the length of the subscription.

Artificial intelligence helps to choose the best tutor.

Go Students sales grew 750 percent last year with this model.

The company is not yet profitable.

“That's okay too,” says the 26-year-old founder Felix Ohswald to the FAZ. Instead, the focus continues to be on expansion, on the one hand with the start in other countries, on the other hand through takeovers.

No IPO in the next two years

Last September, Go Student took over the Austrian start-up School Fox, which offers a complete solution for digital teaching in schools with video conferencing, file storage and timetables. This gives Go Student extended access to its target group. “We believe that the morning and afternoon markets have synergies,” says Ohswald. In other words: the company can also market tutoring in a school app.

The company is also looking to future acquisitions for related services in the education sector, says Ohswald.

Providers of teaching materials are interesting, for example.

Technologically, they are also open to acquisitions: So far, they have been using Zoom's technology for video calls for tutoring - but it doesn't always have to stay that way.

Geographically, Go Student is currently looking primarily at Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia.

"Gaining access to good teachers is a universal problem that exists all over the world," says Ohswald.

The founder ruled out an IPO for at least the next two years.

Then you will look at the situation, he said.

"For the next two years we want to focus on making the company even more mature."