Discovery Platform Sparrho Raises $3M to Democratise Science

  • Sparrho platform blends AI with expert human curation to summarise and share cutting-edge research
  • Funding round enables team growth and scaling of the platform

Sparrho - discover the science that matters to you (Photo: Business Wire)

LONDON--()--Sparrho, the science discovery and curation platform, today announced closing a pre-series A round of $3 million. The round was led by White Cloud Capital with AllBright and Beast Ventures. The new funding will enable Sparrho to grow the team and scale the platform.

Sparrho provides access to over sixty million research papers, patents and publications. Combining artificial intelligence and human experts, the platform helps everybody and anybody find, access and understand the latest science that matters to them - whether that be remote sensing in geology, the effect of nutrition on cystic fibrosis or how meal timing affects your sleep.

Based in London, Europe’s tech capital, Sparrho has a community of one million users across more than 150 countries including a strong network of PhD researchers, academics, alongside students and citizen scientists. To date, users have pinned and shared over 700,000 pieces of scientific content using the platform.

Innovation in scientific discovery and EdTech is much needed. While the internet has provided open access to much of the world’s information, scientific research remains largely gated, accessible only to those with subscriptions to academic journals.

Subscriptions can cost tens of thousands of dollars per year, putting the science beyond the reach of everyone bar those in the research community itself. The net result is that the perceived value of scientific expertise is undermined and society becomes increasingly swayed by the phenomenon of “fake news” and mistrust of “experts”.

Dr. Vivian Chan, CEO and Co-founder of Sparrho said, “The appetite for direct access to scientific thinking has never been greater. Some of Sparrho’s most dedicated users are members of the public and their interest in science is often driven by their profession, personal interests or medical conditions. Enterprise is simultaneously looking for new ways to showcase its own science thinking and stay on top of its research landscape. Meanwhile, members of the scientific community commonly report feeling “siloed” in their area of research, and wish to communicate their work in new and dynamic ways.”

Isabel Fox, White Cloud Capital, said “Sparrho impressed us with its bold mission to democratise science, the calibre of its team and the platform’s unique blend of advanced machine learning and expert human curation. The company not only disrupts scientific publishing but is also creating an entirely new economy of scientific expertise – accessible to the public and to enterprise. We’re delighted to lead this round and support Sparrho as it scales.”

Dr. Vivian Chan added, “Our investors immediately grasped Sparrho’s value in bridging these communities together - citizens, scientific researchers and knowledge-based companies. We’re delighted to have such a visionary board behind us as we move forward with our mission to democratise science by making it more accessible, searchable and shareable.”

Notes for Editors

About Sparrho

Sparrho democratises scientific knowledge, making it more accessible, searchable and shareable. A blend of machine learning and expert curation ensures you automatically stay on top of the science that matters to you. Sparrho has attracted over one million users from more than 150 countries who search over 60 million pieces of content every day, making it the leading platform for the discovery, curation and dissemination of scientific research.

Contacts

TRMandC
Courtney Glymph
Courtney@trmandc.co.uk

Release Summary

Science discovery platform Sparrho raises $3m to democratise science

Contacts

TRMandC
Courtney Glymph
Courtney@trmandc.co.uk