Tutored, a startup that graduated from LUISS ENLABS acceleration program, closed a new round of funding for €400k during the summer.
 
Just a few months after the first seed round, Tutored reached the milestones before the deadlines set by the investors. This is why LVenture Group, Club Digitale and Club Italia Investimenti 2 decided to invest again in order to better support the international expansion and scaling of the startup.
 
Tutored now counts more than 400.000 unique visitors per month, 100.000 registered users, 15 active cities, and plans to open in New York, Berlin and London by the end of the year. Operations are already in progress since Gabriele Giugliano, CEO of the startup, is now in New York City with his co-founders Martina Mattone, COO, and Nicolò Bardi, CFO.
 
 
The results achieved by Tutored have been impressive. When they have been accepted to the acceleration program, even our team was skeptic: albeit the three co-founders seemed committed, the idea behind Tutored was not the most innovative.
 
During the LUISS ENLABS acceleration program, startups are required to present their work every two weeks in a small private event that we call Demo Day. Usually, this kind of event is attended by members of the Board of Advisors, the LUISS ENLABS team and all the teams of the startups participating to the program. And Tutored, after the first Demo Days, raised many doubts and questions. How will they grow their user-base? How will they be able to monetize on the platform?
 
In a few months, Tutored answered to all the questions and doubts and surprised everyone: by slightly tweaking their business model, they fund out a way to gain users at almost zero cost. When Christmas time arrived, the team enacted a surprising marketing stunt by dressing up as Santa Claus and delivering to their first users’ house small gifts. The stunt was recorded by taking selfies, which were then published on Facebook. The pics were then tagged with all the people, thus creating an exceptional virality tool: Tutored gained exposure and recognition at almost zero cost!
 

 
“The three founders of Tutored are very young ,are risk-takers, and they are not afraid to get their hands dirty – Giulio Montoli, Business Analyst who followed the startup during the acceleration program said – We haven’t done anything special with them. What we do in the acceleration program is to teach startups a validated working method to manage complex and uncertain projects and to connect them with our network of investors. During the program, we ask startups tons of questions. We question all the time, for 5 months, on every single aspect of their work. This helps startups to find their way, to analyze and justify all of their decisions. Tutored reacted very well. It’s unbelivable how much they are open to feedbacks and focused on their job.”

 
Tutored helps organize a high quality tutoring session quickly and easily for any university course or specialized discipline. It gives the chance to students to greatly improve their preparation, and to private instructors to earn money comfortably from home.

“We created Tutored to solve a problem from which we suffer ourselves – said Nicolò Bardi, co-founder of the startup and student from LUISS University – we are all University students facing the same challenges: getting top marks”.
 
As Martina Mattone, co-founder, explained: “Often, studying from books is not enough. Knowing in detail what the lecturers explain in class is usually the most valuable insight for successfully passing exams. That’s how we came up with the idea of Tutored, a platform that matches students who already passed an exam in a specific Faculty and with a specific professor, with other students willing to pass the same exam with the highest mark!”

Tutored operates in a market worth €400B in Europe and €400M in Italy, with a 10% CAGR, according to Codacons 2013. Tutored aims at becoming the leading European player, beating the growth shown other startups operating in the US market.

More info on: lventuregroup.com


LUISS ENLABS is a startup accelerator from the Rome ecosystem, part of the TWIST partnership, under the StartUp Europe umbrella. StartUp Europe aims to strengthen the business environment for web and ICT entrepreneurs so that their ideas and business can start and grow in the EU.



TWIST DIGITAL is the H2020 action, under the Startup Europe umbrella, that provides Transregional Web Innovative Services for Thriving Digital and Mobile to web entrepreneurs aiming at scaling up and competing in the global market around 4 interconnected web entrepreneurship startup ecosystems and hubs (Rome, Lille, Stockholm and Warsaw).
 
Startup Europe aims to strengthen the business environment for web and ICT entrepreneurs so that their ideas and business can start and grow in the EU. Startup Europe contributes to the Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan.
Startup Europe's objectives are:
  • to reinforce the links between people, business and associations who build and scale up the startup ecosystem (e.g. the Web Investors Forum, the Accelerator Assembly, the Crowdfunding Network) 
  • to inspire entrepreneurs and provide role models (e.g. the Leaders Club and their Startup Manifesto, the Startup Europe Roadshow)
  • to celebrate new and innovative startups (with Tech All Stars and Europioneers), help them to expand their business (Startup Europe Partnership, ACE Acceleration Programme), and give them access to funding under Horizon 2020.