Benson Oak increases investment in social learning platform Spitball
The company boasts 1.7 million student users worldwide, including 764,000 students in Israel. Some 68% of Israeli users have returned to use the site at least once a month, and 20% use it daily.
By EYTAN HALONA student at Jerusalem’s Shalem College.(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Benson Oak, a Prague-headquartered investment banking firm with a fund focused on Israeli start-ups, has increased its investment in Rehovot-based social learning platform Spitball.Spitball’s collaborative platform enables high school and college students to find and share study materials and knowledge using smart online tools, including social media applications, in order to achieve better grades.The company boasts 1.7 million student users worldwide, including 764,000 students in Israel. Some 68% of Israeli users have returned to use the site at least once a month, and 20% use it daily.Benson Oak’s latest vote of confidence in the company brings its total investment to NIS 20 million. The company intends to make further investments in the start-up in the future.In the coming days, Spitball will launch a new blockchain-integrated platform enabling students to receive monetary rewards for their contribution to the system.The company has partnered up with BuyMe to allow active users to convert points gained by contributing to the application into BuyMe gift cards. Students will soon be able to convert points into blockchain tokens that can be traded among users.“School today is very similar to management decades ago and is behind the times in terms of technology. Spitball takes the tools and qualities all of us use on the internet and on social media and connects them to learning processes,” said Eidan Apelbaum, founder and CEO of Spitball.“Students can collaborate on problems with homework, summaries from class and receive online help with specific problems through a video chat. It hails a revolution in the field, and I’m delighted to lead it,” he said.In July, Benson Oak announced the establishment of Benson Oak Ventures – a Herzliya-based special investment fund focused on Israel. The mission of the fund is to invest in Israeli start-ups, with an emphasis on blockchain technologies.“We are excited to launch Spitball’s new platform, which will provide a user experience never seen before in Israel. Benson Oak continues to seek out investments in Israeli blockchain technologies and startups, which we believe can make a real change in various areas of life,” said Robert Cohen, Managing Partner of Benson Oak Ventures.
“We believe in Spitball, and our first investment in the company was back in 2013. We are now increasing our investment and are sure it will hail a change in the field.”