SA EdTech Start-Up FoondaMate Raises $2 Million In Seed Round Funding
SA EdTech Start-Up FoondaMate Raises $2 Million In Seed Round Funding. South African EdTech startup FoondaMate took to LinkedIn to announce that it has managed to raise $2 Million In Seed Round Funding in order to make studying easily available for everyone, everywhere.
The post read, “Very excited to share that we’ve closed our $2M Seed Round to make studying easy for everyone, everywhere. Excited to be working with LocalGlobe, Emerge Education , FirstCheck Africa, LoftyInc Capital Management, Basecapital.io, Future Africa and some amazing angel investors to unlock opportunities for students.” FoondaMate is a WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger Chatbot for high school students in emerging markets with limited internet access. It can be used to download notes, past papers, do basic research and work out solutions to simple maths equations.
Currently the majority of students in developing countries, and especially Sub-Saharan Africa, do not have access to WiFi. As a result most students cannot download study notes or past papers, and cannot look things up on the internet if they are confused. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that many schools cannot afford printers, let alone cover the cost of printing study material for students. Few schools have enough textbooks to give each student a copy. Most students have access to a smartphone and most cellphone networks allow use of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger at reduced rates. This means WhatsApp and Messenger Chatbots can help solve these problems, FoondaMate is a company that aims to provide practical solutions that will help eradicate this issue that students face.
The funding was led by LocalGlobe, which is a UK-based venture capital firm that focuses on seed and impact investments. The company has been Seeding ambitious UK founders since 1999 in Citymapper, Improbable, Lovefilm, Moo, Tweetdeck, Transferwise and Zoopla.
