An Egyptian ed-tech startup named OBM has secured a 6-figure US dollar round of funding to fuel its expansionist policy into more African countries.
The startup was founded in 2020 in Egypt by El-Barbary and Ezz El-Din Farag. It was founded to help pre-university majors decide on their college majors and grant them access to career advice and training programs. EdVentures, which has been helping Egyptian ed-tech startups since 2017, gave them money for the second time in the company’s most recent funding round. This money will be used to support the company’s growth policy through its mobile app.
In a statement, El-Barbary said: “EdVentures’ new investment is quite strategic for our ambitious expansion plans as we will use it to launch our new application, Taleb, which will enable us to provide extended services for our users and to fulfill our mission of ensuring an exceptional career advising experience for Egyptian students.”The founder and CEO of EdVentures, Dalia Ibrahim, said that before her company invested in OBM, they saw great potential in the company as it caters to a huge population of students and undergraduates through its platform.
In a statement, Dalia Ibrahim said: “That’s why we were keen to have another round of investment in OBM to help them further expand and increase their offerings, thus helping more students and enabling them to make well-informed decisions about their future and to become job-ready.”
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Fast-Growing EdTech Companies and Startups (2022)
The expected annualised rate at which the global EdTech space is expected to grow is $112.39 billion, and some big companies are expected to take the bulk share of the attention, namely Udemy, MasterClass, Teachable, Etc.
Aside from these big and established EdTech startups, some emerging ones are taking the space by storm and need to be closely monitored:
1) Teachoo:
It was established in 2014 in Pune, India. It is an education platform that hosts a variety of online courses for English-speaking students based in India, and some of these courses include tax preparation, Microsoft Excel, and Math.
Since it started, the search growth status has exploded. In the last 5 years, it has grown by 1866%.
2) Outschool:
It was established in 2015 in San Francisco, California, USA. The platform was made for homeschooled students who take live classes on the platform to get their lessons. The students and parents are given various live classes to pick from, as there are over 1,000 classes on the platform, including drawing. It is reported that it has over 100,000 students who use its platform to meet their various academic needs. In terms of funding, the company recently completed a Series C funding round in which it received $100.1 million, and it has seen a 1300% increase in search traffic over the last five years.
3) Labster:
It was founded in 2011 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The platform was made so that science students who prefer homeschooling can do real lab work from the comfort of their own homes. It has a number of virtual labs that students can use to do experiments in VR.
Since it operates a virtual lab, it allows students to practice their science skills in a safe environment and prepares them for real-world lab work as their virtual lab is designed to project a real lab.
Presently on the platform. The company has over 150 virtual labs and hosts over 1,000 university students and clients. In terms of funding, the company recently completed a Series C funding round in which it raised $150.5 million from investors and has experienced 320% search growth over the last five years.
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4) Cambly:
It was founded in 2012 in San Francisco, California, USA. The platform was designed to be an on-demand video platform for students who have issues mastering the basics of the English language. The platform offers video lessons by English tutors and includes several features such as chat translations, lesson recordings, certifications, and courses. The company has also stated that it has a plan for organizations interested in learning English.
In funding, the company recently completed an Unknown series round in which it generated $120.2 million and has recorded a 3350% increase in search growth over the past 5 years.
Today, the education sector is now moving from the physical to the digital space, which has a lot of advantages but sadly comes with disadvantages, too, which means that students must have a balance between the two, as homeschooling is now on the rise through the EdTech platform and it doesn’t look to be slowing down shortly.