Exit: Blinklist is acquired by Australian continuing education startup Go1

Berlin — The startup Blin­kist has a new owner, it is acqui­red by the Austra­lian conti­nuing educa­tion startup Go1. There is talk of a purchase price of around Euro 200 million. “The team and the brand will conti­nue to exist after the tran­sac­tion,” explains foun­der and CEO Holger Seim (photo right). The Berlin-based startup offers summa­ries of current nonfic­tion books in short text sections (“blinks”) or in audio form and has so far prima­rily targe­ted end customers.

As a leader in lear­ning and deve­lo­p­ment, Go1’s open plat­form provi­des the world’s largest compa­nies and their employees access to high-quality trai­ning and deve­lo­p­ment in a single solu­tion. With this acqui­si­tion, Go1 is laying the foun­da­tion for a new and inno­va­tive model of lifel­ong lear­ning that aims to engage lear­ners in their daily lives, both profes­sio­nally and personally.

Andrew Barnes, Go1’s co-CEO, said, “The combi­na­tion of Go1 and Blin­kist offers some­thing not found in any corner of the corpo­rate lear­ning market: a conti­nuous lear­ning expe­ri­ence that serves profes­sio­nal goals while being perso­nally engaging.”

Toge­ther, the compa­nies will serve lear­ners holi­sti­cally and create a model that is unpar­al­le­led in the market­place. Through the merger, the compa­nies plan to acce­le­rate the growth of Blin­kist for Busi­ness and leverage Blinkist’s exper­tise in enga­ging lear­ners outside the workplace.

The new owner Go1 from Bris­bane mainly focu­ses on compa­nies, and Blin­kist has also been repre­sen­ted in this segment for about one and a half years. Howe­ver, “Blin­kist for Busi­ness” has so far accoun­ted for the far smal­ler part of the busi­ness. Another diffe­rence: Blin­kist crea­tes the content itself, while Go1 cura­tes it from other provi­ders. “That’s how we came toge­ther,” says Seim, whose startup part­ners with Go1 to offer its own summa­ries through the platform.

We have known each other for a long time

“Go1 foun­der Andrew Barnes and I have known each other for seve­ral years,” says Seim, who will be COO of the Austra­lian company. The need to work with another vendor was obvious. “There is signi­fi­cant conso­li­da­tion in the market. We oursel­ves were not able to support a take­over. Go1, howe­ver, had a well-filled ‘war chest’,” says Seim. Nearly $400 million has flowed into the company since its foun­ding in 2015, accor­ding to Crunchbase.

Blin­kist was foun­ded in 2012 and is used by over 26 million people world­wide. It finds the most rele­vant and impactful books and podcasts and distills them down to their core ideas, which can be read or listened to in 15-minute expl­ana­ti­ons called blinks. In addi­tion to indi­vi­dual lear­ners, over 1,500 orga­niza­ti­ons around the globe have alre­ady chosen Blin­kist for Busi­ness to support their teams where they need it — anytime, anywhere.