• BoomTown, Monday, September 27, 2010 12:50 PM

Online textbook rental startup Chegg just raised another $75 million from Asia-based Ace Limited, sources tell BoomTown. One might assume that the online textbook rental business is a niche market, which makes Chegg's over $200 million in total funding all the more remarkable.

"Venture firms, such as Kleiner Perkins, Foundation Capital, Insight Venture Partners and others have presumably handed over that money in hopes of big returns," writes BoomTown. "And, of course, the inevitable IPO for the Silicon Valley start-up ... That's because Chegg has become the front-runner in the increasingly competitive online textbook rental space as it seeks to disrupt the $10 billion college textbook business." Founded in 2005, Chegg was originally a classified rental service, where books were the dominant item, and eventually began renting textbooks itself. Chegg recently acquired a startup by the name of CourseRank, which helps students "share their course schedule, take classes with their friends, read and write reviews on classes and professors as well as find out how professors grade."

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