Photomath
just raised a $6 million funding round from Goodwater Capital, with Learn
Capital also participating. Photomath has created a hugely successful mobile
app for iOS and Android with 100 million downloads so far.
Photomath
first launched at TechCrunch Disrupt London back in 2014. The company was
working on text recognition technology. Photomath was just a demo app to
promote that technology.
But the
startup accidentally created a consumer success. The app instantly attracted
millions of downloads from many desperate students willing to learn math with
their phones.
Years later
it is still one of the most downloaded apps in the App Store and Play Store.
And the reason it’s been so successful is that it’s a simple concept.
After
downloading the app, you just have to point your phone at a math problem. It
can be in a book, or it can recognize your own handwriting. The app then gives
you a step-by-step explanation to solve the problem.
Combining
these two things is what makes Photomath useful. WolframAlpha can solve
equations, and Evernote can recognize your handwriting. But nobody thought
about combining these things.
Typing an
equation can be hard, so it makes a ton of sense to bridge the gap between the
physical world and smartphones. Before everybody started talking about
augmented reality, Photomath was already taking advantage of the system-on-a-chip
in your phone.
Photomath is
also capable of generating graphs and supports advanced problems, such as
limits, integrations, complex numbers, etc. The app solves around 1.2 billion
math problems per month.
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