Textbook rental site Chegg.com raises another $57m

November 19, 2009 | Anthony Ha | Comments |
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chegg logoPopular textbook rental site Chegg.com continues to raise tremendous amounts of money — today it announced a $57 million fourth round, as well as $55 million in credit and debt.

The Santa Clara, Calif. company says it will use the extra $112 million (!) to meet the demands of its rapid growth. Chegg applies a Netflix-like model (where you check out the books you need at the beginning of the semester then send it back to Chegg at the end) to textbooks, which supposedly allows students to cut their costs by 60 to 75 percent. Chegg says it’s used by hundreds of thousands of students at 6,400 colleges.

The company also says it wants to use the new funding to improve customer service and striking more deals publishers, booksellers, and colleges.

Insight Venture Partners led the new round, and also provided the credit, while the debt comes from Pinnacle Ventures and TriplePoint Capital. The company has now raised a $84.2 million (not counting credit and debt), most in a round led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Competitors include BookRenter.

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About the Author, Anthony Ha

Anthony is VentureBeat's assistant editor, as well as its reporter on enterprise technology, cloud computing, and tech policy. Before joining VentureBeat in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.

  • becky
    I wish this was around when I was in school!!
  • What's the difference between debt and credit? Thanks.
  • There's no difference.
  • Thanks. Wasn't sure if one was referring to a line of credit versus
    term debt or a convertible note.
  • John
    I hope the company continues to be successful. I have saved hundreds off of the ridiculously inflated textbook prices charged (even used) at college bookstores. I hope to continue to do so. I have been very pleased with Chegg’s service and am getting ready to rent next semester’s books from them. Chegg also buys used books. I got around $40-50 per book which was MUCH higher than I could get from the college bookstore or even by selling on Amazon. Coupon code CC101954 gives you an extra $5.00 when you sell your books to Chegg. The same coupon gets you an extra 5% off of book rentals.
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