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We all fondly remember forking out hundreds, if not thousands for our college textbooks, including many we never really read (thank you, CliffsNotes). With basic tuition, plus room & board approaching $50K a year in many schools, it's no wonder that cost saving college options abound on the web. Renting your college texts is one.
Bookrenter recently raised $40 million in Series C funding. Comerica Bank, Focus Ventures and Lighthouse Capital Partners were joined by return backers Adams Capital Management, Norwest Venture Partners and Storm Ventures. The company previously raised $16 million.
In their own words: "Buying your textbooks is expensive, and who has time to find high-quality, cheap used textbooks? Be smarter — at BookRenter, you can rent textbooks for a fraction of the cost, and have them delivered right to your door as fast as the next day. BookRenter makes education more affordable one cheaptextbook rental at a time. We also have a huge collection of cheap textbooks that you can rent - saving you more money than before. BookRenter: The Best Way to Rent Textbooks for College!"
Here's the rub--BookRenter is creating an efficient marketplace for used books. Instead of being forced to buy high priced new or used texts from your college bookstore, or from that used textbook storefront in the strip mall next to the pizza parlour, BookRenter pools textbooks from various virtual and physical sites. The result is that the average textbook can be used a lot more times, reducing new book sales--sorry, publishers and professors. The whole concept is also part of the green logistics movement, whereby perfectly good products can be recycled many more times.
Raising $56 million is not easy. Congratulations to a green start up who lives the first rule of successful entrepreneurship--find a simple problem that costs people too much money and solve it.
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