Nigeria’s edtech startup uLesson has raised $7.5 million Series A funding for Africa expansion. The new round was led by Owl Ventures, TLcom Capital and two others.
The Managing Director of Owl Ventures, Tory Patterson will also join the uLesson board, further strengthening the education startup’s push to deliver affordable, high-quality and accessible education across Africa using technology.
uLesson allows learners to experience personalised learning, practice tests, region-specific mock tests and assessed performance and progress for students and parents, including rich reporting dashboards for detailed analysis.
It is tailored towards the WAEC curriculum region (Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Gambia), with its current content focuses on core subjects of Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology for secondary school students.
uLesson has scaled quickly to 1 million app downloads since its launch in March 2020.
According to uLesson Founder and CEO, Sim Shagaya, “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.”
With this new funding, the startup plans to expand to Eastern and Southern Africa. It will also launch a host of new products including a new pan-African primary school library, 1:1 tutoring sessions and Challenge – its new app feature that allows learners to challenge friends to a quiz.
“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.” Tory Patterson, Managing Director of Owl Ventures said.
The Former Minister of Communication Technology, Dr. Omobola Johnson in a tweet congratulated Sim Shagaya and the team at ULesson
“Many congratulations and very well done @SimShagaya. The journey to change the face of education on the continent will be exciting and not without it’s unique challenges. We at @TLcomCapital are pleased to be on that journey with you and your team”.
Many congratulations and very well done @SimShagaya. The journey to change the face of education on the continent will be exciting and not without it's unique challenges. We at @TLcomCapital are pleased to be on that journey with you and your team. https://t.co/gFkDIESfX6
— Omobola Johnson (@OmobolaJohnson) January 19, 2021
