Nigerian edtech learning platform, uLesson, has secured a $3.1 million seed funding from TLcom Capital in order to address infrastructure and learning gaps in Africa’s education sector. This is contained in an official press release sent to Nairametrics.
The seed round announced today allows uLesson to take the product to market in West Africa, before looking to develop educational content and a product for the East African market. Targeting secondary school learners across the West African region, uLesson will launch officially in February 2020, having been in development and beta testing for 12 months.
[READ: Konga’s former CEO, Sim Shagaya, establishes a new company ‘uLesson’]
To date, the uLesson has produced over 3,000 richly animated, personalised video learning modules, quizzes and tests that will be available on the uLesson android app, via a subscription model, in Q1 2020.
Speaking on the investment and upcoming launch of uLesson, CEO Sim Shagaya says, “Education systems across Africa are in crisis and uLesson has been developed to radically shake-up the system and bring better access to high-quality curriculum-relevant educational content to learners across the continent. As our population grows extremely rapidly, the current public and private approach to education investment is chasing a goal that is moving further away.
We want to lower the entry point for access to education for young Africans, and technology is the only way this challenge will be met. With this in mind, today is not just an investment in uLesson – it’s an investment in Africa’s future.”
Shagaya concludes, “We work collaboratively, passionately & relentlessly, utilizing every tool available, to deliver high-quality affordable education to all Africans. Education, Financial Inclusion & Health need to be tackled on the continent. Remarkable progress in developing financial products has been made.
Of the other two, Education represents an immediate opportunity that can be addressed with the tools provided by digital technology (smartphones, wireless internet, data storage and analytics). uLesson believes it has a model that can work in substantially addressing these challenges.”
As part of the seed round, Ido Sum and Omobola Johnson, partners in TLcom’s executive team, will join the board alongside former Konga CEO, Shola Adekoya.
Speaking on the investment, Ido Sum adds, “In uLesson, we found a company that fits perfectly with our ethos – an entrepreneur-led startup building affordable, mass-market mobile-first solution tackling one of Africa’s largest challenges. In Sim, we have an entrepreneur with an unrivaled track record in building technology products for Africa. His team is building solutions for a massive opportunity, and we strongly believe they are about to make a serious dent in the education market across the continent.”
[READ: How Sim Shagaya revolutionalised the traditional method of commerce in Nigeria]
About ULesson
Founded by serial entrepreneur and founder of Nigeria’s Konga, Sim Shagaya, uLesson has built the technology to deploy curriculum-relevant content via smartphones that allow learners to use the product without concern for internet limitations and costs. uLesson’s mobile offering rests on three pillars: academics, media & technology and curriculum content are delivered via streaming and SD cards.
The platform 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. Tailored towards the WAEC curriculum region (Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Gambia), uLesson’s current content focuses on core subjects of Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology for secondary school students.
