Quofox went bankrupt. Now Archipel Academy buys the learning marketplace. DHDL juror Tijen Onaran and a European soccer champion were invested.
Quofox from Berlin is now part of Archipel. archipelago
The learning marketplace Quofox was taken over by its competitor Archipel Academy from the Netherlands. The exit comes about three months after the Berlin startup had to file for bankruptcy. A round of financing had previously collapsed, putting the company in financial difficulties.
Nele Mletschkowsky, who has been CEO of Quofox since 2019, will from now on take over the business in the DACH region for Archipel. It is not publicly known whether Quofox will disappear as a brand and what will happen to the employees of the Berliner. Some links on the Quofox website such as the contact form, the blog or the press page already lead to nowhere. The company has not yet responded to inquiries from the start-up scene. The salaries of the last 21 employees were secured by the insolvency money until the end of May 2023, according to administrator Christian Otto at the time of filing for bankruptcy.
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Financially, Quofox is said to have been in good shape before the impending insolvency. In March 2022, the company said it had crossed the break-even point. For the 2021 financial year, the Federal Gazette still showed a six-digit loss. As an explanation for the insolvency application a few weeks ago, the insolvency administrator stated to Gründerszene: “As a start-up, Quofox GmbH is still dependent on the contributions of its shareholders for financing”.
Funders like Tijen Onaran believed in Quofox
These sponsors included the Hannover Beteiligungsfonds, FMI Investment, European football champion Thomas Helmer and the entrepreneur and DHDL juror Tijen Onaran. They provided the startup with a total of 3.5 million euros in venture capital.
Quofox was founded in 2015 by Frank Mies and Stephanie O’Reilly. The start-up offers online learning courses from lecturers on a marketplace and earns a commission from it. The offer is aimed at companies that want to train their employees. In an interview with Gründerszene shortly after the start, Mies spoke of wanting to become the “Amazon of learning” with Quofox.