ScrollEd turns textbooks into a short-form learning feed

ScrollEd, a Palo Alto startup, is building an app that turns text files, including PDFs and textbooks, into a feed modeled on Instagram Reels and TikTok.

The company is pitching the product in TechCrunch Disrupt’s Startup Battlefield 200 competition. As users scroll, the app presents AI-generated video, audio, text, and interactive quizzes. Swiping up opens a new topic, while swiping sideways lets users explore the current topic in more depth, followed by a quiz.

Co-founder Utsav Gupta told TechCrunch that the company is responding to the popularity of short-form, vertical feeds, especially among the 18-year-olds it has spoken with. He said ScrollEd wants to make deeper learning as easy as moving to the next video, while being deliberate about avoiding engagement-maximization goals.

Gupta founded ScrollEd this year with his co-founder and wife, Rebecca Neff. Gupta studies AI and human purpose at Stanford, while Neff studies computer science at the University of Pennsylvania.

ScrollEd is targeting educational institutions, corporate training programs, and individual users. Its freemium model combines a free consumer feed with a paid ScrollEd Pro subscription and annual institutional licenses. The startup plans to expand its lesson library, improve source-checking, and develop institutional pilots.