Despite the dynamism in life, there are aspects that never grow old, but keep evolving, innovating and is dynamism in itself.
One of such aspects is education which remains in our everyday lives and is the bedrock of all other sectors. In recent times, education has become a necessity thriving hand in hand with technology, birthing edtech.
The need to combine education and technology has been way before the pandemic which put a rigorous speed to what seemed to have been underestimated. Of course, individuals and groups took this upon themselves, building edtech companies that are thriving and making the sector scale.
Not limited to these, some edtech startups making waves and have shown promising advancement include:
1. Edukoya
The 24/7 free learning platform enables students to master key subjects and prepare for school and university entrance exams. Edukoya affirms that 96% of its students get higher scores within a short period and students are tutored according to their strengths, helping them get better with time.
A little over a month ago, the Lagos- and London-based startup raised $3,500,000 in pre-seed funding led by European VC firm Target Global to scale operations.
2. Teesas
Interestingly, Teesas enables its students to learn alphabets, greetings, songs, folktales and history in indigenous languages. The edtech platform has an app that enables parents to monitor their child’s learning progress in real-time.
With over 150,000 downloads on the Google Play Store despite being founded less than 2 years ago, Teesas raised $1,600,000 pre-seed funding in December last year. The funds were to enable the startup’s expansion into new markets, launch a marketplace that will link learners with tutors for private lessons, and expand the range of products in its portfolio.
3. uLesson
uLesson asserts that its app has been downloaded by over 2,000,000 people, 12,900,000+ lessons provided by the startup have been watched by students and 25,600,000+ questions from students have been answered by uLesson.
The two-year-old startup closed a $15,000,000 Series B round last year, 11 months after its $7,500,000 Series A, completed by five investors: Tencent, Nielsen Ventures, and existing investors Owl Ventures, TLcom Capital and Founder Collective.
4. Edcent
Edcent offers online courses and training for both universities and companies. The Nigerian-based company provides practice exercises, instructional videos, and a personalised learning dashboard that enable users to study at their own pace, within or outside classrooms.
With users within and outside Nigeria, Edcent was also launched in the heat of the pandemic and raised pre-seed funding from CrownVest last year.
5. LearnAM
ScholarX, a Lagos-based edtech startup recently pivoted into LearnAM, a localised mobile platform that provides audio and visual educational content to improve digital literacy and inclusion in Africa.
LearnAM is a mobile platform that provides audio-visual content, in localized languages, to improve digital literacy, digital skills and vocational skills of Africans. The Startup adopts a freemium model and all of its foundational courses are free but users will be required to pay a few thousands to access more advance courses.
LearnAM is available on Android (for smartphone users). You can also access it via KiaOS (for feature phone handlers); in other words, people from low-income households who don’t have access to internet-enabled phones can use the platform on their feature phones.
The startup hit 11,000 users within two months it launched! It plans to reach over 100 million people in Africa, starting from Nigeria where it launched, with the three majority languages: Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa. It also has Pidgin and English languages.
Learners can switch from the English language to any of these local languages when taking a course on the app. It is definitely an edtech startup to watch in 2022
6. Edves
Nigeria and Ghana-based Edves provides a platform where digital learning and teaching is made seamless. Via the platform, parents can monitor their children’s progress in real-time.
Last year, the edtech company serving African k-12 schools raised $575,000 seed funding led by Beta Ventures to improve its technology and reach in over 800 schools across Nigeria, Ghana, and Zimbabwe.
7. Roducate
This is a comprehensive curriculum based e-learning platform launched in 2010. Everything schools need is, on Roducate. Schools can create their own platform on Roducate that mirrors the site’s main platform. The platform comes with a suite of features: Lecture Notes, Videos, Podcasts, Practice Assignments, Mock Exams and My Network–a chat function, within the app, for communication between teachers and students and among students. Learn more about Roducate here.
8. Ed Partners Africa
Ed Partners Africa makes access to quality education seamless. The edtech startup is focused on enabling access to credit for private schools providing education to the low-income populace.
Ed Partners Africa’s $1,900,000 fund raised last year enabled the company to boost its goal in bridging educational gap through school-focused lending and a hub-and-spoke based model where the company’s relationship managers work closely with the school leadership through the entire credit process.
9. Edusko
Edusko is an education marketplace for schools, parents, students, vendors, solution providers, EdTech and Original Equipment Manufacturers. Edusko leverages technology and data to make life easier for schools, parents, students, teachers, donor agencies, policy makers and leading brands that are genuinely interested in the African education ecosystem. The platform’s mission is to enhance the quality of and access to education in Africa by creating game changing solutions and platforms for education providers, school leaders, policy makers, teachers, parents and students.
10. Utiva
Utiva is developing talents for the future of work. The company organises a number of fellowships to help customers master certain tech skills like Digital Marketing, Data Science, Data Analysis, Product Manager, UI/UX Designer, and so on. According to them, they are the “best way to gain job-ready expertise for the careers of the future”.
Hewlett-Packard (HP) is backing Utiva in a $50,000 partnership meant to help more women and girls learn more premium technology skills. See details here.
