Academia.edu, the social networking platform for researchers, raises $11.1 million

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They have been picking up about 1 million new users every three months.  To mark that progress, the company is picking up $11.1 million in funding led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from previous investors like Spark Capital and True Ventures. The ultimate goal is to change the way scientific research is distributed and validated.  

“More outsiders will be able to come in and bring that beginner’s mind thinking to research,” Richard Price said, pointing out a 16-year-old student who studied papers from Science on applications for nanotubes.  A few issues  at the moment are that under the traditional peer review model there are a handful of journals that hold a huge amount of power, resulting in research can be delayed by months or years before it can be consumed by academics in the field or even the public.  The platform sees about 150,000 articles uploaded every month, including a few that have gone viral. Price wants to create a different kind of reputation system, taking cues from the follower model that Twitter made popular.

“A core problem for researchers is how to build their brand,” Price explained. “To make a name for  yourself in a field, you have to share your work.”   While the company is still pretty much pre-revenue (except for job advertisements that appear on the site), Price envisions using a model that charges for-profit companies for access to data and insights on which research and researchers are gaining traction.