Brilliant (website)

Brilliant.org is an American for-profit company and associated community that features 100+ guided courses across the site. It operates via a freemium business model.

Brilliant was founded in 2012. At the Launch Festival in March 2013, CEO and co-founder Sue Khim presented the idea of Brilliant, attracting funding from venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya. In August 2013, TechCrunch reported that Brilliant.org had secured funding from Palihapitiya's Social+Capital Partnership, as well as from 500 Startups, Kapor Capital, Learn Capital, and Hyde Park Angels. The website boasted over 100,000 users at that time. By July 2017, the platform had accumulated more than 4 million registered users, and by April 2019, it had achieved a valuation of $50 million.

Originally, Brilliant hosted a variety of individual puzzles and occasionally monthly challenges. At one point, the individual puzzles included their Problem of the Week, a selection of the 15 best puzzles for the week. Currently, all of their content is housed within the problem-solving-based courses. Only a few lessons in each subject are available outside of subscription to the website.

Reception
Several publications have noted Brilliant for its success in identifying gifted students. Commonly cited examples include Farrell Wu from the Philippines, Dylan Toh of Singapore, and Phoebe Cai of the United States.

Brilliant regularly contributes math and science puzzles to publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian, and FiveThirtyEight. Brilliant has also been cited by The Atlantic as a catalyst of the "math revolution" - a surge in the number of American teens excelling at math.

In 2013, Brilliant co-founder and CEO Sue Khim was listed among the Forbes 30 under 30 for the Education category for her work on Brilliant.

Two employees of Brilliant were among the victims of the 2019 MV Conception fire.

Acquisition
In Dec 2022, Brilliant acquired Hellosaurus, a software and entertainment company that distributes interactive programming for kids from various children's creators like The Wiggles, Kids Diana, etc. CEO Sue Khim said the acquisition will help Brilliant accelerate its mission towards active learning.