Chegg Tutors
Chegg Tutors (formerly known as InstaEDU) is an online tutoring company that matches students who need help with online tutors. Students can receive help either on-demand or by scheduling a lesson.[1]
Subsidiary | |
Industry | Education |
Founded | San Francisco, California, USA in November 2011 |
Key people | Alison Johnston, Dan Johnston, Joey Shurtleff (cofounders) |
Products | Online Tutoring |
Parent | Chegg |
Website | CheggTutors |
History
Chegg Tutors was founded in 2011 as InstaEDU and launched into public beta in May 2012. At that time, the company also announced that it had raised $1.1M in venture capital funding from The Social+Capital Partnership.[2] Two of the company's cofounders had previously run an in-home tutoring company called Cardinal Scholars. After running Cardinal Scholars they got the idea for an online tutoring company—InstaEDU. In July 2012 they sold Cardinal Scholars to Course Hero.[3] In August 2013, the service announced it had raised a $4 million Series A round of funding[4] from Battery Ventures. At that time, the InstaEDU service also came out of beta.
On 3 June 2014, Chegg announced that it purchased InstaEDU for $30 million in cash, and that it plans to keep the InstaEDU service active as part of the purchase.[5]
In 2017, Chegg partnered with Sallie Mae to give student borrowers access to Chegg Tutors.[6]
Services
Students can visit InstaEDU and get matched with a tutor on-demand.[7] InstaEDU allows students to browse tutor profiles and schedule lessons with a specific tutor. The InstaEDU lesson space uses video chat, text chat, a white board, a document editor, code editor, screen sharing and a file uploader to allow students and tutors to work together. In April 2014, the site announced that it was mobile-friendly;[8] the mobile site supports messaging, scheduling and written lessons.
Reception
InstaEDU has been featured on The Today Show as a great job for students over the summer and included in a write up in the Wall Street Journal on online tutoring. Mashable listed InstaEDU first in a write up of dependable sources for online tutoring.[9][10][11] CEO and cofounder Alison Johnston was named to Forbes 30 under 30 in Education in January 2014.[12]
References
- "Homework Questions? Ask a Tutor on InstaEDU".
- "InstaEDU On-Demand Video Tutoring Gets An A+ and $1.1M Seed From The Social+Capital Partnership".
- Constine, Josh. "EduTech Team-Up: Course Hero Buys Cardinal Scholars In-Person Tutoring Business From InstaEDU". TechCrunch. Retrieved 4 May 2013.
- Taylor, Colleen. "Online Tutoring Platform InstaEDU Raises $4 Million Series A Led By Battery Ventures". TechCrunch. Retrieved 20 December 2013.
- Griffith, Erin. "Chegg buys InstaEDU in transition away from book rentals". Fortune Magazine. Retrieved 8 June 2014.
- Danielle Douglas-Gabriel (9 May 2017). "Sallie Mae teams with Chegg to offer customers virtual tutoring for college classes". The Washington Post. Retrieved 7 February 2018.
- "InstaEDU: On-Demand Tutoring for Instant Homework Help!".
- Clemens, Ben. "blog.instaedu.com/2014/04/14/mobile-friendly-instaedu/". Archived from the original on 8 May 2014. Retrieved 7 May 2014.
- "How teens can earn extra cash over the summer". The Today Show.
- Shellenbarger, Sue. "Invasion of the Online Tutors". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 20 December 2013.
- Fox, Zoe. "Dependable Destinations for Online Tutoring". Mashable.
- Howard, Caroline. "Forbes 30 under 30: Education". Forbes.