Business

Rip Empson is a writer and rabble-rouser at TechCrunch. He covers startups, music, social, mobile, health, and education. You can reach him at rip[at]techcrunch[dot]com ? Learn More Since it first appeared earlier this year, Boston-based educational startup Boundless has been on a mission to ensure that college students have a free alternative to the pricey and bulky world of physical textbooks. The startup believes that an oligopoly of textbook publishers has been driving up costs for years (as the four top publishers currently control the lion’s share of the market) and so it set out to change that. Naturally, as a result, Boundless has found itself on the receiving end of litigation — courtesy of three of those top textbook publishers. Leaning on the $8 million it raised in April from Venrock, Nextview, Founder Collective and Kepha (and nearly $10 million total), the startup has since gone on the offensive, filing a motion to dismiss two of those claims last month, as it buckled d...