NIGERIA – Nigerian edtech learning platform uLesson has closed a $3.1-million seed round led by London headquartered TLcom Capital.
The seed round will enable the edtech startup to launch its product in West Africa.
uLesson also intends to use the funding to develop educational content and a specialised product for the East African market.
The investment deal will see Ido Sum and Omobola Johnson — who are both partners in TLcom’s executive team — join the uLesson board alongside former Konga CEO Shola Adekoya.
Sum, commenting on the deal, said in uLesson the venture capital firm found a company that fit with its ethos — an entrepreneur-led startup building affordable, mass-market mobile first solution tackling one of Africa’s largest challenges.
uLesson was launched earlier this year by Nigerian serial entrepreneur and Konga founder Sim Shagaya and is based in Jos, in central Nigeria.
It produces curriculum content for secondary school learners across the West Africa region.
In a statement Shagaya, said 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.
The platform allows learners to experience personalised learning, practice tests, region-specific mock tests and assessed performance and progress for students and parents, including reporting dashboards for detailed analysis.
Its content is tailored towards the West African Examination Council (Waec) curriculum region — which includes Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Gambia — and focuses on core subjects of Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology for secondary school students.
The startup’s team has to date produced over 3000 animated and personalised video learning modules, as well as quizzes and tests that will be available on the uLesson android app, via a subscription model, in the first quarter of next year.
In addition to streaming, uLesson curriculum content will be delivered to users via SD cards, allowing learners to use the product without concern for internet limitations and costs.
The uLesson platform has been in development and beta testing for the last 12 months and will officially launch next year.
