French startup Kokoroe is a marketplace for any kind of course. On the company’s website, you can find a guitar teacher or a photography teacher and book a course in a few clicks. Teachers can also find students and manage their planning on the same website.
Right now, the 10 most popular categories are English, computers and IT, guitar, cooking, makeup, dance, couture, math, piano and photography. So Kokoroe isn’t just about helping you in your studies.
While the startup launched just five months ago, there are already 2,500 teachers covering more than 300 different courses. One of the main arguments to attract teachers is that signing up to Kokoroe gives you a nice profile page with a description of what you do. It’s a great way to have a presence on the web, much like Reedsy profiles for freelancers working in the book industry.
The company raised a $280,000 seed round (€250,000) from Kima Ventures, Deezer’s Daniel Marhely, Cyril Aouizerate, Julien Codorniou, Olivier Gonzalez and Renaud Guillerm. Kokoroe wants to expand to Germany and other European countries next year, and a mobile app is in the works.
“We target adults with do-it-yourself courses, creative courses and computer courses. And we see that most of these courses are booked by people between 25 and 35,” co-founder Béatrice Gherara told me. “They book a Ukulele course, a fire eater course — you can’t find these courses anywhere else.”
Kokoroe takes a €2.50 fixed fee, as well as a 10 percent cut on every course. Like Airbnb, the platform manages payments and reservations and gives you a calendar. Next up, the company plans to add gamification features with different rewards.
The demand for one-to-one courses is huge, but there isn’t any centralized platform that tackles this issue. Kokoroe may have the opportunity to do just that. As for you, maybe it’s the right time to start learning how to make origamis.