Nerdy (Varsity Tutors)

Edtech / tutoringUSA

New to Unitard

📉 Public < $1B

Peak $1.7 BillionToday

−73%

from peak

🦄
Became a unicorn
2021
📈
Peak valuation
$1.7 Billion ’21
💔
Became a Unitard
2022
💸
Last valuation
~$454M

Current status

Public (NYSE: NRDY)

Live · NRDY· NYSE

as of 2026-10-30

$6.29▲ 2.44% today

≈ $454 Million market cap · −73.3% from peak

The rise & fall

5 moments · 2007–2023

The key moments.

2007

Founded by a college student

Chuck Cohn starts Varsity Tutors as a Washington University student in St. Louis, matching students with live tutors.

TechCrunch

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

The projections don't survive contact

Growth badly misses the pre-merger targets and losses widen.

Motley Fool

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

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

Still in the club — and still trading

Live · NRDY · NYSEas of 2026-10-30

$6.29▲ 2.44% today≈ $454M cap · −73.3% 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 CompanyLinkedIn ↗

Current roles as self-reported on LinkedIn, retrieved 2026-08-19. See our methodology.

Disclosed investors (6)

Historical funding participation; lists may be incomplete and do not establish current ownership or investor losses.

* Lead in a funding round · Crunchbase ↗ · 2026-10-13 · Methodology · Leaderboard