In a round led by LocalGlobe, a U.K.-based venture capital firm, FoondaMate, a South African edtech startup, secured $2 million in seed funding to drive global adoption of its WhatsApp and Facebook-based learning chatbot.
What To Know About FoondaMate
FoondaMate helps students with their revision by providing instant answers to questions and access to revision papers, as well as providing guidance on how to respond to questions.
Dacod Magagula, who co-founded FoondaMate with Tao Boyle, revealed that the startup is aimed at high-school students in emerging regions where WhatsApp is extensively used, and connectivity is much cheaper or free. He claims that the company’s learning chatbot is easy to use, affordable, and provides an organized alternative to using search engines for studying. Educators can also use FoondaMate’s integrated resources to assign and distribute homework, as well as share other educational content with students.
Magagula said he began working on FoondaMate in August 2020, when WhatsApp released a beta version of its API to allow businesses to connect with customers.
“It (WhatsApp) was in beta at the time, and I started playing around with it… I thought it’d be a perfect way to enable access to study materials to students in the same position as myself…because a majority of students do not have access to the wider internet but have access to WhatsApp. Also, many network providers offer WhatsApp for free to attract users to their network,” said Magagula.
Before teaming up with Boyle, Magagula was trying to fix the supply chain to get textbooks to underserved schools. He had additional experience from his high-school days that made him see the idea’s feasibility.
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“During the final year of high school in South Africa, I used the computer my brother and I had bought using our savings for studies and downloading all revision materials I could get my hands on. I had a huge database of past papers, but no way of sharing it with my friends, and printing them was expensive,” he added.
Furthermore, he explained that “the materials played a big role in my success in school as I graduated top of my class and my performance was the best in the school’s history (at that time). And so FoondaMate was created to make these resources easily accessible to students,” said Magagula, who studied Computer Science at the University of Capetown. After teaming up with Boyle, they added more functionalities and integrated it with additional services.
FoondaMate Rapid Growth
FoondaMate has been used by more than 400,000 students in more than 30 countries since its launch, including Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, and Indonesia, where the startup recently launched and has witnessed a spike in usage.
Magagula stated that the company is now focusing on localizing its learning materials in order to accommodate learners from more nations and accelerate the platform’s growth to more than 50 million users. This recent funding round has provided the resources required for its rapid growth.
“Initially, I thought FoondaMate would be used by students who do not have Wi-Fi and those with limited access to the internet. But the reality is, it is being used by those with good internet connectivity too…because it’s an easy and intuitive way to access study material,” he remarked.
To keep the children safe on the platform, the startup has a team that vets where the bot gets its information and monitors the results.
Emerge Education, Odunayo Eweniyi via FirstCheckAfrica, Iyin Aboyeji via Future Africa, LoftyInc, and angels from Luno (Marcus Swanepoel) and Justworks took part in the round (Isaac Oates). They joined the XX accelerator, which was the startup’s first backer.
LocalGlobe Partner Ziv Reichert commented that – “FoondaMate’s viral growth strongly reflects how well the product resonates with learners and speaks volumes to Dacod and Tao’s deep understanding of their users’ needs.”
“Having initially launched with a mission to transform how students across Africa study, FoondaMate has evolved into a tool that is now used and loved by learners from a range of backgrounds, with varying needs and learning styles, from all across the world. We believe that it takes immense empathy for a problem and a realistic long-term view to build a product of this kind,” he emphasized.