This week, the Dutch Chamber of Commerce (KvK) announced their annual top 100 of the most innovative companies. Groningen based startup BUKU won the Audience Choice Award for their subscription based platform for educational books. The startup was ranked 57th in the top 100, but won the popular vote, with 615 votes.
Simply put, BUKU is like Spotify, but for textbooks and schoolbooks. For a monthly fee, students have unlimited access to all textbooks of the publishers on the platform. A little over 20 publishers have joined the platform already, and BUKU is active in the Netherlands, Curaçao and Suriname, with plans to expand to Namibia and Kenya next year.
Textbooks are sold for the same price worldwide, which means they’re simply unaffordable in developing countries. BUKU’s platform will not only help those students, but it also creates a new market for publishers.
The KvK Innovation Top 100 jury prize was awarded to PHYSEE, a startup from Delft, for their Smartskin, a smart glass facade with integrated solar cells and sensors.