ReferenceME Ltd, creators of RefME, the book-barcode scanning app that claims to make citations and reference lists easier since its launch in January, has received $5 million in seed funding that it plans on investing in its global presence.

For those unfamiliar, RefME is a free-service app that is available on the web and across the mobile platforms iOS and Android. It helps students everywhere by automating citations for books, journals, "films, webpages, speeches, interviews, legal cases and more. It also supports automating citations in more than 7,000 academic formats," according to an article on techcrunch.com.

It currently boasts 800,000 users and attributes its success to filling a need that had largely went neglected. In addition to making referencing easier, RefME touts that it will be able to provide a very valuable thing to educators everywhere: data.

"RefME is focusing on vertical search and on garnering valuable intel on the reference works that students are using most — analytics which it will be able to feed back to universities, institutions and publishers down the line. It argues universities are spending millions per year buying textbooks without having good visibility on which books are most useful," according to the article.

It makes sense, then, that GEMS Global, "itself owned by private K-12 education company Varkey Group," is behind $4 million of RefME's financing. RefME's promise of valuable data could have big implications for the education business. 

As for how it will spend the investment, the "startup says it will be using the seed funding to invest in its engineering and data teams — it currently has a team of 36 in its London office — and scale its global presence." Co-founder Ian Forshrew has set his sights high, and plans on targeting 300 million students globally.

Read the full story here and comment below.

Article by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor