Pakistan-based edtech startup Maqsad raised US$2.1 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Indus Valley Capital.
Other participants of the pre-seed round, which was completed in only three weeks through virtual meetings, include Alter Global, Fatima Gobi Ventures, and several angel investors from Pakistan, the Middle East, and Europe.
Maqsad co-founder Aziz said that the funds raised will be used to enhance the content platform growth of Maqsad including developing in-house content, such as production studio, academics, and animators, and to augment Research and Development (R&D) and engineering.
The company ran small pilots in April and May before starting full-scale operations in the last week of July.
Maqsad (Purpose in Urdu) is on a mission to provide a high-quality learning experience to 100 million Pakistani students.
The startup plans to focus on the K-12 education in Pakistan, including the mathematics of grades 11 and 12, with plans to include other STEM subjects in the next couple of years, explained Aziz. The platform offers a one-stop-shop for after-school academic content in English and Urdu languages.
It will use quizzes and other gamified features to provide customized education to individuals through adaptive testing, meaning the difficulty level of questions will be altered depending on users’ responses.
Aziz further said that the company is building a mobile-optimized platform, considering the fact that 95% of broadband users in Pakistan are through mobile. Maqsad’s mobile app, currently under development, will be launched in the last quarter of 2021 and has a waitlist for early access.
Co-founder Taha Ahmed, a former strategy consultant at LEK, said:
“It’s about more than just getting students to pass their exams. We want to start a revolution in the way Pakistani students learn, moving beyond rote memorization to a place of real comprehension.”
The company will be built as a “hybrid center offering online and offline courses like Byju’s and Aakash, and expand classes for adults such as MasterClass, the U.S.-based online classes for adults, as its long-term plans,” Aziz said.
“Pakistan’s edtech opportunity is one of the largest in the world. The education market size in Pakistan is estimated at $12 billion and is projected to increase to $30 billion by 2030,” according to Aziz.
Investments in Pakistani startups cross $258m mark
2021 has been an amazing year for Pakistani tech startups from the investments point of view. The entire 2020 saw Pakistani startups receiving investments of $77 million whereas, in just 8 months of the current year, investments in Pakistani startups have crossed $258 million, according to Ignite.