Nigerian Edtech platform, uLesson, has successfully raised $7.5 million in Series A round.
This comes a year after the edtech platform raised a seed round of $3.1 million.
uLesson, which was founded in 2019 by former Konga CEO, Sim Shagaya, said it is working on bridging the educational gaps for K-7 to K-12 students across Africa.
The platform said it aims to accomplish this by delivering affordable, high-quality and accessible education to the targeted category by using technology.
The Series A round is led by Owl Ventures, with inclusion from TLcom Capital, Founder Collective, and LocalGlobe.
Tory Patterson, managing director of Owl Ventures, joins the uLesson board, alongside TLcom partners, Omobola Johnson and Ido Sum, who joined two years ago.
Making comments on the funding round, Owl Ventures managing director, Tory Patterson said:
“Owl Ventures is honoured to be partnering with uLesson for their Series A. The company has quickly grown into the premier platform supporting students in Africa, and we are excited to support their global expansion, as they seek to empower students around the world.”
uLesson’s content, which was originally tailored for K-12 students in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Gambia, has now added the IGCSE curriculum, which is relevant to its target audience in the listed countries.
With uLesson’s service, students can have access to lessons via streaming. Students could also download and store the content on SD cards, allowing them to study remotely, removing challenges around internet access limitations and costs.
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uLessons has recorded significant progress in West Africa, prompting the need to expand to Eastern and Southern Africa.
Alongside uLesson’s expansion, the startup is set to launch a series of other new products, including a new pan-African primary school library, one-on-one tutoring sessions, and Challenge (which is a new feature that allows learners to challenge friends to a quiz).
Speaking on the need to have contents that is specifically tailored to individual markets, uLesson founder and CEO, Sim Shagaya said:
“Africa is not one place. Different needs, cultures and curricula mean that uLesson has to carefully and deliberately think about how to design products and distribution channels to serve such a vast market. Almost daily, we receive emails from families across the continent, asking us to make services available to them; and in 2021, we will.”
Mr Shagaya further added that:
“The appreciation of the importance of education has always been there; the means of delivering digital, relevant education has previously been lacking.”
“We are now witnessing an increased availability of data networks in Africa and with more affordable smartphones and the change in attitudes towards online learning accelerated by COVID-19, the foundations are now in place for an education revolution.”
“At uLesson, we know we have a critical role to play in this “new normal,” and this funding will be crucial in our drive to fill the major gaps in Africa’s education system, through tech.”
David Frankel, managing partner at Founder Collective, made comments about the Seed funding, he said:
“Sim Shagaya is assembling a world-class team to help realise his vision of a modernised education system for one of the highest potential places in the world today, and we’re thrilled to be a part of it.”