Photomath is an

educational technology Educational technology (commonly abbreviated as edutech, or edtech) is the combined use of computer hardware, software, and educational theory and practice to facilitate learning and teaching. When referred to with its abbreviation, "EdTech" ...

mobile app, owned by

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

. It features a

computer algebra system A computer algebra system (CAS) or symbolic algebra system (SAS) is any mathematical software with the ability to manipulate mathematical expressions in a way similar to the traditional manual computations of mathematicians and scientists. The de ...

with an augmented

optical character recognition Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the electronics, electronic or machine, mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo ...

system, designed for use with a smartphone's camera to scan and recognize mathematical equations; the app then displays step-by-step explanations onscreen. The app is based on a text recognition engine developed by Microblink, a company based in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

and

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

and led by founder Damir Sabol, which also includes the developers of both Photomath and Photopay. Photomath LLC was legally registered in

San Mateo, California San Mateo ( ) is the most populous city in San Mateo County, California, United States, on the San Francisco Peninsula. It is part of the San Francisco Bay Area metropolitan region, and is located about south of San Francisco. San Mateo border ...

. In 2021, Photomath announced $23 million in Series B funding led by Menlo Ventures, with contributions from GSV Ventures, Learn Capital, Cherubic Ventures, and Goodwater Capital. In May 2022, Google announced it would acquire the company for an undisclosed amount. After review by the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...

, the deal received approval in March 2023 and concluded in June. This takeover represented the largest startup acquisition in Croatian history, with Photomath being the nation's leading app at that time. This acquisition was cited as a strategic move by Google in response to

ChatGPT ChatGPT is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI and released on November 30, 2022. It uses large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-4o as well as other Multimodal learning, multimodal models to create human-like re ...

. Upon Photomath's dissolution, Sabol transitioned to the role of Director of Software Engineering at Google. As of February 29, 2024, Google has integrated the app into its Play Store publisher portfolio.

Description

Photomath utilizes the camera of a user's smartphone or tablet to scan and identify mathematical problems. Upon recognition, the app displays the steps to solve the problem. The app presents these steps through various methods and approaches, elucidating the problem-solving process in a step-by-step manner to educate users. Starting in 2016, the app expanded its capabilities to include handwriting recognition, alongside printed text, allowing students to scan both textbooks and handwritten mathematical notes. In 2017, Photomath was recognized by The Tech Edvocate as one of the top 20 teaching and learning applications. While Photomath is predominantly free, it also provides a subscription-based service, ‘Photomath Plus’, which enhances functionality with features like solving mathematical word problems and providing solutions to textbook exercises. As of 2021, Photomath boasts over 220 million downloads globally, with its official website reporting the resolution of 2.2 billion problems monthly and adoption by over 1 million educators.

References

External links

* {{Google LLC 2014 software Android (operating system) software Companies based in Zagreb Croatian brands Google acquisitions IOS software Mathematical software Photo software 2023 mergers and acquisitions Educational apps