Blinkist was profitable for the first time in the 2020 financial year

With its learning offering, the start-up has profited from the Corona pandemic. Now Blinkist has turned a profit for the first time.

In the 2020 financial year, Blinkist made a profit for the first time since its founding: the net profit amounted to 728,000 euros. In 2019, the company still had a net loss of over 10 million euros.

In 2020, the startup also benefited from the Corona pandemic. "The willingness to pay for learning content online has increased significantly in recent years and alternative learning options have become more and more important. This trend has been accelerated by the Corona pandemic," the company wrote in its 2020 financial statements.

Still, growth in 2020 was lower than projected: instead of a 48 percent increase in revenue, the startup only grew 26.4 percent compared to 2019. The company cites the limited mobility of its customers during the lockdown as the reason. Content would often be heard while commuting by train or car. "With many fewer people on the go due to the lockdown and instead having more time on their hands, Blinkist found itself competing more with longer formats, such as movies," the annual report says. Despite this, Blinkist was able to gain eight percent more subscribers last year.

Niklas Jansen, Holger Seim and Tobias Balling founded Blinkist in Berlin in 2012. The start-up offers an app that briefly summarizes and explains the content of nonfiction books. Subscribers can read through or listen to the summaries. The company is also represented in the USA.