
Brainly S.A.
Privately held Polish education technology company operating the Brainly peer-to-peer learning platform, reaching more than 350 million students and parents.
Company Type
private
Founded
2009
Headquarters
Krakow, Poland
Revenue
approximately $75M (2025 estimate)
Employees
approximately 500 (estimated)
Primary Market
Global
About Brainly S.A.
Is Brainly publicly traded?
No. Brainly S.A. is a private, venture-backed company. Its investors include Prosus, General Catalyst, and Point Nine Capital. There is no public stock.
Who founded Brainly?
Michal Borkowski, Tomasz Kraus, and Lukasz Haluch founded the company in Krakow, Poland, in 2009, originally as the Polish homework site Zadane.pl. Borkowski remains CEO.
Where is Brainly headquartered?
Brainly is headquartered in Krakow, Poland, with business offices in New York. Engineering and moderation operations are concentrated in Krakow.
How does Brainly make money?
Through Brainly Plus subscriptions, advertising on the free tier, and emerging paid AI learning tools. The company does not disclose revenue; third-party estimates place 2025 revenue near $75 million.
How many users does Brainly have?
The company reports reaching more than 350 million students and parents across 35+ countries, though active monthly usage figures are lower and not publicly audited.
Is Brainly an AI company now?
Since 2023 Brainly has repositioned around AI-assisted learning, using its moderated answer corpus to power AI explanations and tutoring features alongside its peer-to-peer community model.
History of Brainly S.A.
Michal Borkowski, Tomasz Kraus, and Lukasz Haluch founded the company in Krakow in 2009, launching as Zadane.pl, a Polish homework-help site. The peer-answer model scaled quickly, and the founders rebranded internationally as Brainly, expanding across Europe and into the US market in 2014.
Venture funding fueled the expansion: Series rounds from Point Nine Capital, General Catalyst, and others financed growth through the mid-2010s. A landmark $80 million round in 2019 and subsequent investment brought total funding above $150 million, with Prosus (Naspers' internet arm) becoming a significant shareholder.
The platform peaked in usage during the pandemic school closures of 2020 and 2021, when remote learning drove hundreds of millions of monthly visits. The post-pandemic years required adjustment as in-person schooling returned, and the company reduced headcount in restructuring moves while repositioning around AI.
Since 2023, Brainly has invested heavily in AI-assisted learning: answer verification, personalized tutoring features, and AI-generated explanations layered onto its human-moderated knowledge base. By 2026 the company positions itself as an AI learning platform powered by its corpus of moderated student answers rather than purely a Q&A community.
Controversy, Regulation & Public Scrutiny
Academic Integrity: Like all homework-help platforms, Brainly faces criticism that students use it to copy answers rather than learn. The company counters with step-by-step explanations and tutor verification, but the academic integrity debate is ongoing across the category.
Content Moderation: Operating a platform where minors exchange answers requires child-safety moderation under COPPA and GDPR requirements; Brainly maintains moderation teams and age-appropriate design practices, with no major regulatory actions reported.
Brands Owned by Brainly S.A.
Brainly S.A. owns 1 brand in our database. Explore the ownership tree below — click categories to expand and see individual brands.
Brainly S.A.
private · Founded 2009 · Krakow, Poland
1
brands
Brainly S.A. Ownership: Pros & Cons
Advantages
- +Founder-led with long-tenured venture backing, preserving strategic continuity
- +Massive proprietary corpus of moderated homework answers, valuable training data for AI features
- +Global reach across 35+ countries diversifies dependence on any single market
- +Low-cost Polish engineering base supports efficient product development
Considerations
- -General-purpose AI directly substitutes for the core product, pressuring subscription economics
- -No public financials make the company's health opaque; revenue figures are third-party estimates
- -Monetization of a largely minor, price-sensitive user base is structurally difficult
- -Venture investors will eventually require a liquidity path in a category with weak recent exits
Frequently Asked Questions About Brainly S.A.
Is Brainly publicly traded?
No. Brainly S.A. is a private, venture-backed company. Its investors include Prosus, General Catalyst, and Point Nine Capital. There is no public stock.
Who founded Brainly?
Michal Borkowski, Tomasz Kraus, and Lukasz Haluch founded the company in Krakow, Poland, in 2009, originally as the Polish homework site Zadane.pl. Borkowski remains CEO.
Where is Brainly headquartered?
Brainly is headquartered in Krakow, Poland, with business offices in New York. Engineering and moderation operations are concentrated in Krakow.
How does Brainly make money?
Through Brainly Plus subscriptions, advertising on the free tier, and emerging paid AI learning tools. The company does not disclose revenue; third-party estimates place 2025 revenue near $75 million.
How many users does Brainly have?
The company reports reaching more than 350 million students and parents across 35+ countries, though active monthly usage figures are lower and not publicly audited.
Is Brainly an AI company now?
Since 2023 Brainly has repositioned around AI-assisted learning, using its moderated answer corpus to power AI explanations and tutoring features alongside its peer-to-peer community model.





