ScrollEd Wants Textbooks to Scroll Like TikTok
Palo Alto startup ScrollEd has built an app that turns textbooks and PDFs into a TikTok-style feed with AI-generated video, audio, text and quizzes. It is pitching at TechCrunch Disrupt and preparing a freemium launch for consumers and institutions.
As a user scrolls, the content shows up as AI-generated video, audio, text, or interactive quizzes. Swiping up surfaces a new topic, while swiping sideways lets the user go deeper into the current one, with a quiz waiting at the end.
“The younger generation is increasingly going short form, vertical feed only (especially the 18 year olds we’ve spoken to!), and this poses challenges for any kind of media that requires depth,” Utsav Gupta, ScrollEd’s co-founder, told TechCrunch in an email. “We want to meet them where they are...We just have to be deliberate about how we use it and choose not to maximize engagement on the platform.”
Gupta added that a short video can make someone curious, and following that curiosity can mean searching for another explanation or leaving the app. “We wanted going deeper to be as easy as moving to the next video,” he said.
Gupta bootstrapped ScrollEd this year with his co-founder and wife Rebecca Neff after both noticed feeling dissatisfied after doomscrolling before bed. Both are students: Gupta studies AI and human purpose at Stanford, and Neff studies computer science at the University of Pennsylvania.
The startup is targeting educational institutions, corporate training programs, and individuals who “just want something better to scroll on,” according to Gupta. The company will launch its consumer business at Disrupt.
ScrollEd is following a freemium model, combining a free consumer feed with a paid ScrollEd Pro subscription and annual institutional licenses. Institutions pay to deliver educational material through the platform, in exchange for reports about engagement, lesson progress, and other data.
In the coming months, ScrollEd intends to focus on its consumer launch, building its lesson library and source-checking workflow, and developing pilots for institutions. The startup is also building infrastructure that will one day allow educators to assess individual learners and adapt to their needs.
“The ambition is a social network that’s better for you,” Gupta said.