Blinkist is taken over by Go1

Blinkist, the app for short summaries of books, has teamed up with the Australian B2B education service Go1. The common goal is to create a holistic offering for lifelong learning.

As a provider of learning and development resources, Go1 has direct access to education and training for a number of global companies and their employees. With the acquisition of Blinkist, the company is laying the foundation for a new, holistic offering. The aim is to support people worldwide in integrating lifelong learning into their professional and personal lives.

The combination of Go1 and Blinkist offers something unique in the corporate learning market: a continuous learning experience that serves professional goals while being personally engaging

Andrew Barnes, Co-CEO of Go1

Holger Seim will join Go1 as COO Learners and the Blinkist team will continue to operate under its own brand name and focus on learners. The aim is to expand the consumer-oriented service worldwide from Berlin.

Details of the takeover are not known, except that it involves a three-digit million sum, according to Seim.

We started Blinkist as a service for learners, but have noticed a growing interest from companies in recent years.

Holger Seim, CEO Blinkist

Go1 is a global learning content company that provides education and training for a wide range of industries and topics by aggregating content. Over 8 million learners from more than 60 countries use Go1. They can access a library of 80,000 courses from more than 350 content partners. Go1 is a Y-Combinator 2023 top company, an SAP partner and an EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award nominee. Key investors include Seek, Softbank, M12 (Microsoft's venture capital arm), Madrona Venture Group and AirTree Ventures, as well as Blinkist investors such as Insight Partners, Greycroft, Headline, IBB Ventures and MGO.

Blinkist's offering will expand the existing learning opportunities for Go1 customers and create strong synergies.

Thilo Semmelbauer, Managing Director Insight Partners

Blinkist is a German company founded in 2012 by Holger Seim, Tobias Balling and Niklas Jansen. The platform offers a summary of non-fiction books and enables users to get to know the most important insights and ideas of a book in a short space of time. Blinkist has over 20 million registered users and is available in several languages. The company has gone through several investment rounds in recent years and has been backed by Insight Partners, Greycroft and IBB Ventures, among others.