Blinkist

Blinkist is a book-summarizing subscription service based in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in 2012 by Holger Seim, Niklas Jansen, Sebastian Klein, and Tobias Balling and has 23 million downloads as of 2023.

The service provides summaries of over 6,500 titles, including bestselling nonfiction books in fifteen-minute reads, otherwise known as Blinks. The summaries are available in English, German and Spanish.

History
The company was founded in August 2012 by college friends Holger Seim, Tobias Balling, Niklas Jansen and Sebastian Klein. Since they all enjoyed reading, they wanted to discover ways to read more books in a shorter amount of time. During their academic journey, they leveraged note-taking as a means to remember the books they read, and realized the value it added to their learning process. Hence, they created an app to provide access to their notes at any time.

In 2013 Blinkist had its public launch. The same year the first version of the Blinkist app went live with text based book summaries. The company moved into its first office in Berlin, with 8 employees in total.

At the end of 2014 the app reached 1,000 customers and also launched its audio function, which made it possible to listen to summaries instead of reading.

By 2016 Blinkist had 1,500 titles in the library and had 1 million users. Later that year, Blinkist won the World Summit Awards from the United Nations in the category Education & Learning.

In 2018 the company raised $18.8 million in funding led by venture capital firm Insight Venture Partners. The Blinkist user base grew to 6 million users that year, and there were 2,500 titles available in the app.

Since 2023, Blinkist has 26 million app downloads, with 6,500 titles in its library.

In May 2023 it was announced that Blinkist has been acquired by the Australian ed-tech startup Go1.

Blinkist partners with more than 45 non-fiction publishers worldwide, and is working directly with over 50 authors and thought leaders to create content for the app.

Blinkist is operated by Blinks Labs GmbH in Berlin, Germany. The headquarters is located in the Berlin neighborhood of Neukölln. Blinkist has around 160 full time employees and freelancers.

Blinkist acquired by Go1
On May 8, 2023, it was announced that Go1 has acquired Blinkist for an undisclosed amount, that is “significantly bigger” than its last valuation ($160 million). In the process, Blinkist’s biggest investor, Insight Partners, took $30 million in equity in Go1. The acquisition happened after the Australian learning platform raised $100 million at a valuation of over $2 billion last year, in hopes of expanding its reach and tech within the online learning market. The two companies plan on creating a learning model that serves the customer holistically.

Go1
Go1 is an Australian ed-tech startup led by Andrew Barnes, founder and Co-CEO, and Chris Eigeland, Co-CEO. The platform offers a learning and development library with more than 80,000 courses for customers in more than 60 countries.

Features
Users can browse books within 27 categories for professional and personal growth:


 * Biography & Memoir
 * Career & Success
 * Communication Skills
 * Corporate Culture
 * Creativity
 * Economics
 * Education
 * Entrepreneurship
 * Health & Nutrition
 * History
 * Management & Leadership
 * Marketing & Sales
 * Mindfulness & Happiness
 * Money & Investment
 * Motivation & Inspiration
 * Nature & the Environment
 * Parenting
 * Personal Development
 * Philosophy
 * Politics
 * Productivity
 * Psychology
 * Religion & Spirituality
 * Science
 * Sex & Relationships
 * Society & Culture
 * Technology & the Future

Blinkist provides summaries of books and also provides audio versions of the summaries.

Blinks
This is what Blinkist call their summaries. They distill books into 15 minute audio and text explainers, highlighting just the key ideas the user needs to know. Blinkist currently offers Blinks in three languages — English, German and Spanish.

Shortcasts
Shortcasts take the same principle as Blinks, but focusing on podcasts. This audio format summarize the key points from a podcast episode and are often created in partnership with hosts and creators.

Guides
Guides are a more in-depth, longer content format that are hosted by authors and thought leaders. Generally focusing on personal and professional development, the Guides feature Blinks from the Blinkist library and learning tools to help users engage with what they learn.

Spaces
Spaces is a product feature that allows users to share and comment on content with others, directly in the app. Once content has been added to a Space, users can interact by commenting, reacting, as well as seeing who else has read it.

Blinkist for Business
Blinkist for Business allows organizations to expand their learning opportunities for employees, by giving them access to the Blinkist app and their entire content library. Organizations can use the Blinkst library to identify content that supports their internal learning programs, recommend titles to employees directly in the app, and get access to expert coaching pathways. Employees get access to the entire library, allowing them to personalize their own personal and professional development.

Reception
The business focused social media platform LinkedIn named Blinkist one of the top 25 companies to work for in Germany, two consecutive years, in 2018 and 2019.

Awards
In 2016, Blinkist won the World Summit Award in the category Learning & Education. The World Summit Award, granted by the United Nations, selects and promotes digital innovation with a focus on making the world a better place.

The app’s distinctive design caught the attention of Google when it was awarded a Material Design Award in 2017 in the category of Brand Expressiveness.

In 2020, Blinkist received the Better Sound Award from the ISA (International Sound Awards), in the category Audio Branding.

In 2021, the German Design Award named Blinkist as their winner in the category Excellent Communications DesignBrand Identity.

In popular culture
Blinkist is mentioned in the HBO comedy series Ballers in the third episode of the fifth season, 07:15, titled "Copernicursed". In the episode Vernon (played by Donovan Carter) tells Reggie (played by London Brown) he knows about Galileo and Copernicus through the Blinkist app.

The book Tribe Of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World by bestselling author Tim Ferriss, mentions Blinkist as one of the "Most Impactful Purchases of $100 or Less". The book brings together an anthology of methods, strategies, and routines from over 130 of the world's foremost achievers, spanning accomplished entrepreneurs to elite athletes and from artists to billionaire investors. When asked in the book "What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months (or in recent memory)?", Liv Boeree answered Blinkist.

Similar services
Blinkist's competitors include Littler Books, Sumizeit, BUUK App, Booknotes, Snapreads, ReadingIQ, getAbstract, Instaread, BookRags, and Quiddity.