Chuck Cohn starts Varsity Tutors as a Washington University student in St. Louis, matching students with live tutors.
TechCrunch
Sep 2021
📈
Sep 2021
The peak: a $1.7B SPAC debut$1.7B
Merges with TPG Pace Tech Opportunities and becomes St. Louis's first billion-dollar tech company.
TechCrunch
2022
2022
The projections don't survive contact
Growth badly misses the pre-merger targets and losses widen.
Motley Fool
2022
💔
2022
Slips out of the club
The slide drags St. Louis's first billion-dollar tech company back under $1B within a year of the debut.
Macrotrends
2023
2023
Free AI asks why anyone pays a tutor
Chatbots like ChatGPT raise existential questions about paid online tutoring; the stock ends up more than 90% below its peak.
EdSurge
Today
Today
Still in the club — and still trading
Live · NRDY · NYSEas of 2026-09-17
$8.70▼ 4.40% today≈ $628M cap · −63.0% from peak
How it happened
Nerdy, the parent of Varsity Tutors, runs an online marketplace connecting students with live tutors and classes, and became St. Louis's first billion-dollar tech company when it went public in September 2021 via a SPAC merger with TPG Pace Tech Opportunities at a $1.7B valuation.
Growth badly missed pre-merger targets, losses widened, and the rise of free AI chatbots like ChatGPT raised existential questions about paid online tutoring. The stock fell more than 90% from its peak, dragging Nerdy's market value well below $1B.
Source: TechCrunch / EdSurge / Motley Fool ($1.7B valuation via TPG Pace Tech Opportunities SPAC, Sept 2021; stock down 90%+ from peak; missed revenue targets, generative-AI tutoring threat)
Founder
Chuck Cohn
Founder, Chairman & CEO
Now Founder & CEO at Varsity Tutors, a Nerdy Company · LinkedIn ↗
Current roles as self-reported on LinkedIn, retrieved 2026-08-19. See our methodology.
