LocalGlobe, the UK-based venture capital firm, led a $2 million seed funding round for South African edtech startup FoondaMate, which is developing a learning chatbot for Facebook and Whatsapp.
Foondamate helps students with their revision by giving them immediate answers to questions and also guiding them in responses to questions.
The startup targets high-school students in emerging markets where it's free to access and widely used, according to co-founder Dacod Magagula. He said that its learning chatbot is easy to use, affordable and acts as an organized alternative to using search engines for study. The integrated resources of FoondaMate are used to set and post homework and to share other learning materials with students.
Magagula said he started working on FoondaMate in August of 2020 when he found out about the new app from WhatsApp.
I thought it would be a good way to give access to study materials to students in the same position as me, and I started playing with it. Magagula said that a lot of network providers offer the messaging service for free to attract users to their network.
Magagula had experience from his high-school days that made him see the feasibility of the idea.
During the last year of high school in South Africa, I used the computer my brother and I had bought for my studies and to download revision materials I could get my hands on. Magagula, who serves as the startup's CEO and CTO, said that he had a huge database of past papers but no way of sharing them with his friends.
The materials played a big role in my success in school as I graduated top of my class and my performance was the best ever in the history of school. Magagula, who pursued Computer Science at the University of CapeTown, said that FoondaMate was created to make these resources easily accessible to students. They integrated it with additional services after teaming up with Boyle.
South Africa's edtech FoondaMate raises $2 million to grow. The image is called FoondaMate.
Over 400,000 students have been using FoondaMate since it was launched, and the startup recently launched and has seen a surge in usage.
Magagula said the startup is currently working on localizing its learning material to accommodate learners in more countries and fuel the growth of its platform to more than 50 million users. The resources needed for this rapid take-off have been brought around by its recent funding round.
Initially, I thought FoondaMate would be used by students with limited access to the internet. It is being used by people with good internet connections, because it is an easy and intuitive way to access study material.
The startup has a team that vets where the bot gets its information and also monitors results to make sure the children are safe on the platform.
In addition to LocalGlobe, the round had the participation of Emerge Education, Odunayo Ewen via FirstCheckAfrica, Iyin Aboyeji via Future Africa, and LoftyInc, as well as angels from Luno and Justworks. The startup is the first backer of XX.
LocalGlobe said that the growth of the product's viral growth is a reflection of how well it meshes with learners and speaks to the deep understanding of their 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 background, with varying needs and learning styles, from all across the world. Reichert said that it takes immense empathy for a problem and a long-term view to build a product of this kind.
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