Nigerian ed-tech startup uLesson has secured US$15 million in Series B funding it will use to add to its team and improve services for its growing community of learners across Africa.
Founded in 2019 by serial entrepreneur Sim Shagaya, uLesson offers live online classes with expert tutors, video lessons and personalised live homework help for primary and secondary school learners online and via its app.
Available in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, The Gambia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, South Africa, the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK), uLesson saw its daily average users increase by 430 per cent in 2021, while also reporting positive changes to learning outcomes.
The startup raised a US$7.5 million Series A round in January of this year, and has moved on to Series B within 12 months with a US$15 million investment. The funding comes from Nielsen Ventures and Tencent, as well as existing investors, Owl Ventures, TLcom Capital, and Founder Collective.
With the capital, uLesson plans to continue to invest in product development, strengthen its core technology and add cohort-based learning features. Expanding on its flagship science and mathematics content, the company will add social sciences and financial accounting to the secondary level content library and qualitative and quantitative reasoning to primary level.
“We’re thrilled to achieve this major milestone which will take us further in bringing high quality and affordable education to all Africans. We’re delighted to be joined by seasoned investors, like Tencent, who bring a wealth of experience from their investments in education technology. Backed by incredible partners, we can accelerate our learning to serve the African edtech market more effectively,” said Shagaya.
David Frankel, managing partner at Founder Collective, said he truly believed that entrepreneurs could change the world, and had every hope uLesson would set new standards for education in Africa.
“The incredible talent on the continent has been held back for too long by a lack of opportunities. So I couldn’t be a more enthusiastic supporter of Sim Shagaya and his vision for more accessible and affordable educational opportunities for millions of people,” he said.