Brno medical student's StudyFi app reaches 330,000 users

While other medical students are cramming anatomy, Daniel Rys from Brno also finds time to run his own startup. StudyFi, the app he launched with his partner Filip Till as a bit of side income, has unexpectedly grown into a project with 330,000 users and caught the eye of investors.

Rys is in his sixth year of medicine in Brno and is sitting his state exams this year, so he's building an app for effective studying as much for himself as for anyone else. The idea for StudyFi came about by chance: he met Till at the gym, and at first the project was seen simply as a way to earn some extra money during their studies.

The principle is simple: a student uploads their notes or study guides, and the system generates flashcards, tests or podcasts from them. The team is now also adding a voice AI tutor. “It's not just a chatbot. It's an agent that understands you're studying chemistry. It can talk to you in exam mode or explain material you don't understand,” says Rys, who is in charge of the product.

For memorisation, StudyFi uses a spaced-repetition algorithm that reminds the student of information right at the point when they start to forget it. This, the Brno team says, sets it apart from tools like Google's NotebookLM, which in Rys's view still lacks targeted study plans and advanced testing features. Duolingo, he believes, is more geared toward light, casual lessons, whereas StudyFi is built for intensive exam preparation.

The founders also deliberately distance themselves from the mindless use of ordinary AI tools. “Research shows that careless use of LLMs, where they simply do the work for the student, reduces their cognitive abilities. We try to fight against that,” Rys adds.

Since January, when StudyFi had around 50,000 registered users, that number has grown roughly sevenfold to today's 330,000. At the peak of exam season, the platform counts around ten thousand paying users, and annual recurring revenue (ARR) in those periods reaches €850,000 (about 21 million crowns). Despite relying on expensive language models, the startup maintains a gross margin of around 80%. Till left an American company last November to devote himself fully to the role of CEO.

Investors have noticed the rapid growth too. On New Year's Eve, the founders signed an investment agreement worth €300,000 (about 7.3 million crowns) from Petr Kovačík through his venture studio Budeto — the two met through CzechCrunch's Startup Academy mentoring programme, which StudyFi went on to win. The second investor was Ondřej Kania, founder of the Consilium school network and owner of the football club Slovan Liberec.