QuickWire: Chegg Buys Online-Tutoring Site

Chegg Inc., which hopes to become a soup-to-nuts “student hub,” said on Tuesday morning that it would buy InstaEDU for $30-million in cash.

InstaEDU, which was founded in 2011 and has 20 employees, proposes to connect students with “awesome tutors” in 2,500 subjects who are available around the clock for as little as 40 cents a minute. “Upload any assignment and work through it together,” the site promises. In its news release announcing the purchase, Chegg says the tutors “have been individually screened via InstaEDU’s proprietary qualification system, and receive feedback from their pupils via a public rating system.”

“Selected from some of the top global universities,” the release says, “InstaEDU tutors earn extra money in their spare time while providing a valuable service that can benefit students anywhere, in any subject, and at all income levels.”

Chegg has run its own help site, called Chegg Study, but says the new purchase will let it add “on-demand tutoring, anytime, anywhere, on any device,” which it says is “a very disruptive idea.” The company also rents textbooks online, buys used books, and offers help finding internships and exploring careers.