For years, offline test preparation institutes in Nigeria have given students seeking to pass entrance exams with after-school advice and instruction. Edtech platforms like Edukoya have sprung up with the goal of bringing these models online while keeping costs low for students.
The Lagos and London-based startup, which creates online educational content and provides online tutoring for students and their parents, announced today that it has raised $3.5 million in pre-seed funding led by European venture capital firm Target Global.
The platform includes features such as exam preparation and homework assistance 24 hours a day, a question bank with step-by-step explanations, and individual performance tracking tools.
Honey Ogundeyi, the CEO of Edukoya, launched the company in May. She told TechCrunch that the platform, which went live in testing this month, will be fully operational in 2022.
Nigeria’s education system is a microcosm of what is found in most African countries: ill-equipped classrooms, a scarcity of high-quality teachers, bad infrastructure, irrelevant curriculum, and absurd student-to-teacher ratios (as high as 46:1 in Nigeria for primary school).
As a result of these difficulties, the typical parent searches out after-school programs for their children. This happened to Ogundeyi when she was in school in Nigeria, and she stated she created Edukoya after comparing her K-12 experiences in Nigeria and the United Kingdom.
“Even the brightest children might be let down by the system,” she explained. “All of my job triumphs would have been radically different if my parents hadn’t made the sacrifice for me to go abroad.” Now that I have two children, I see the same difficulty of going to school and struggling in some areas, which has prompted me to look into hiring after-school tutors. And it suddenly occurred to me that this situation hasn’t changed much in the last 50 years. When we consider all of the innovation in many areas, Africa’s educational system has remained same for the past 50 years; it has been stagnant.”
Most students’ ambition at the completion of their K-12 schooling is to gain admission to a university. In Nigeria, the Joint Applications and Matriculations Board (JAMB) and West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) are the equivalents of the SAT for college admissions, much as they are in the United States.
Students usually prepare for these tests by studying materials that contain past exam questions. The practice tests for both entrance exams (about 20,000) were packed inside Edukoya’s mobile app. Edukoya claims to offer step-by-step solutions to “address complex problems on prior examination papers,” as well as the ability for students to interact with qualified instructors for assistance when they get stuck.
The platform then gives data such as scores, time spent per question, and other statistics to assist students in identifying their strengths and weaknesses.
Edukoya states that during the short months that the platform has been in beta with a small group of users, 96 percent of pupils utilizing the platform achieved higher grades on recent tests than students who did not use Edukoya.
Edukoya isn’t the first edtech company in Nigeria to create an online learning or test preparation software. In the previous five years, there have been so many identical platforms that it appears to be the only type of edtech that can be established in the country.
Many of them have gone out of business or have generated little or no traction. Edukoya, on the other hand, has yet to do so. However, after raising the largest pre-seed round in Nigeria and on the continent, the business is on track to outperform its predecessors, who only received small amounts of VC funding.
Furthermore, Edukoya’s approach to learning, according to Ogundeyi, distinguishes it from its competitors and past platforms.
“This concept is unusual in that we reach parents and students entirely over the internet, assisting them not only with examinations but also with day-to-day learning, assignments, and assistance.”
“Edukoya goes above and beyond exam preparation. First and foremost, it serves as an educational resource for parents and students in elementary and secondary school. We’ve seen individuals approach smaller pockets in a variety of ways, but not in the overall sense that we’re considering,” she said.
The majority of edtech companies in this category target grades 1 through 12. Edukoya has a different perspective on the situation. Its platform is solely open to kids in grades 10-12, the age group taking tertiary entrance examinations.
According to Ogundeyi, after the company has tested this relatively narrow segment and five basic disciplines, it will expand to cover more subjects and grade levels.
“I think that’s from my fundamental emphasis — one of the things I gained from Google, which is to have a core group of people love you first,” the CEO remarked, explaining why the company followed this method. We’re focusing on the last three grades, which are crucial in Nigeria since that’s where the exams are taken. And we believe that this is a fantastic way to start working with a small group of folks who need help in that area. It will be easier for us to expand it across other curricular years and grades once we have shown that it works here.”
Edukoya is now free, but Ogundeyi stated that the company is considering a freemium model, in which premium products are used to upsell students or parents.
Edukoya would need to keep finding experienced teachers to provide tutoring services, according to Ogundeyi. Targeting these three groups (students, teachers, and parents) is crucial for new-age edtechs, such as YC-backed Kenyan firm Kidato, Tencent, and Owl Ventures portfolio company uLesson, from day one.
This isn’t the CEO’s first time at the helm of a business. Fashpa, a Nigerian fashion e-commerce business, was started by her in 2014. McKinsey & Company, Ericsson, Google, and the UK-Nigeria Tech Hub have all employed her in consulting and management roles.
She was also the first Chief Marketing Officer of Kuda, Babs Ogundeyi’s Nigerian neobank. His co-founder Musty Mustapha, Paystack CEO Shola Akinlade, Stash founders Brandon Krieg and Ed Robinson, and Aux Money CEO Raffael Johnen are among the angel investors in this round.
“Edukoya’s desire to give higher quality to millions of African students, combined with the team’s capacity to execute on this vision, created an immediate impression on me and the whole Target Global team,” said Lina Chong, investment director at Target Global. Their company has the ability to unlock the potential of learners and enhance life for future generations.”
A large portion of the pre-seed money, according to Ogundeyi, will be used to grow the company’s team and student base, as well as enhance the technology for its learning platform, which will include support for its pan-African and European development hubs.
The CEO was one of Nigeria’s first female entrepreneurs. She has now raised the highest financing in her “minority group” seven years after her debut startup. Though she’s thrilled by the caliber of female founders emerging and the check sizes they’re commanding, she claims her clique is still in its infancy.
“I’ve spent a lot of time in this sector, and I’m very excited about female founders and broadening the scope of what we can do.” That segmentation isn’t something I do very often. Female founders may develop large, valuable enterprises if given the correct opportunity and experience. For us, this is only the first day of our trip.”
