Edtech startup, Edves, secures $575k to accelerate its drive to onboard more online schools
Nigeria’s edtech startup, Edves, which serves African k-12 schools by digitizing learning and administration to ensure multi-curricular lesson delivery online and offline has just secured $575k to scale its operations.
The funding round, which was oversubscribed, was led by Beta Ventures along with Launch Africa, Chinook Capital (follow on), and Future Africa.
As a digital infrastructure, the startup enables collaboration between teachers, parents, and administrators to deliver education, and collaborate on learners’ progress on learning goals, tracking and analyzing learning outcomes. Since its inception, over 790 schools have used the software to automate operations in Nigeria, Ghana, and Zimbabwe.
The CEO/co-founder, Mr ‘Dimeji Falana, and COO/co-founder, Mr. Dare Adebayo, said that the fund would fuel product improvement, the release of new offerings to address fresh consumer needs in the Nigerian market and major segments in other African markets.
Beta. Ventures (BV) General Partner, Ovo Emorhokpor commented on their decision to invest in Edves, “Beta. Ventures have a clear mandate to support exceptional African startups and entrepreneurs bringing actual value to Nigeria and other African communities. We have witnessed Edves firsthand and seen how they deliver on their promise to digitize the learning process in and out of the classroom in Africa.
“We are thrilled to be part of their journey as they scale their offerings and expand into new markets. Beta Ventures is an early-stage investor, focused on partnering with high-potential technology entrepreneurs that are building significant companies for the African market.”
According to Mr. Zachariah George, Managing Partner at Launch Africa Ventures commenting on their investment rationale saying, “With nearly 60 percent of Africa’s population of 1.4 billion being under the age of 25, digital teaching and learning is a must-have and not a nice-to-have.
“Schools all over the continent need easy-to-use, secure learner management software that encompasses all school needs by addressing specific challenges with capturing data, paperwork, and improving every area of school operations.
“With its proprietary technology, presence in 3 countries, and nearly 800 institutions already onboard in Nigeria alone, we feel very confident in the EdVes team’s ability to tackle this huge opportunity head-on.”
Mr. Suru Avoseh, General Partner Chinook Capital shared the rationale for the decision to back Edves for the second time. “At the height of the unexpected COVID-related lockdown, the demand for Edtech products scaled globally (further market validation), however many schools were caught unaware and paid an expensive price to work around the situation. What Edves has done is to introduce innovative technology that makes this transition to digital education seamless at a cost-effective rate.
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“That’s why we invested in Edves and the team. The adoption and demand for their products have been impressive with a reach of over 780 schools in Nigeria with 350,000+ connected players (educators, parents, and students).
“To realize its ambitions to play at a bigger scale, a regional expansion is necessary and our aim is to continue to support Edves’ efforts to achieve the long-term goal: To become the operating system for k-12 schools in emerging markets”.
On his part, Mr. Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Managing Partner, Future Africa noted -“Dimeji and Dare are tenacious technology entrepreneurs in the education space. We’re particularly excited about their execution and growth over the years, especially supporting parents and schools during COVID. A lot of opportunities exist with education in Africa.
“The particular problem that Edves solves is critical to education management. It frees up teachers’ time to focus on more important tasks and helps parents stay abreast of their child’s educational progress. We’re excited to partner with them to build the future of learning in Africa.”
What You Need To Know About Edves
Formed in 2016, Edves is an academic portal that automates operations in schools and colleges from admission to transcript generation. The platform reduces teacher and administrator workload and gives them opportunities to mark attendance and prepare classroom lessons using AI algorithms.
