Students in Bangladesh often turn to after-school learning centers for help with study or exam preparation. However, many of the best are located in large cities. Edtech startup Shikho was founded to make additional education more affordable and accessible. Today, the company announced that it closed a $1.3million seed round with LearnStart (the seed capital of edtech investor firm Learn Capital), and Anchorless Bangladesh.Wavemaker Partners was also involved, as well as Ankur Nagpal (founder and chief executive officer at Teachable), and Wavemaker Partners. Shikho's pre-seed funding last year was $275,000 from LearnStart as well as strategic angel investors.Shikho was founded in April 2019. It focuses on grades 9, 10, 11, and 12. There are plans to add content for grades 6 through university level and continuing education. The learning material is created by teachers and subject experts using the Bangladeshi National Curriculum. It uses gamification techniques like leaderboards, points, virtual awards, and leaderboards to keep students interested.Shikho was established in April 2019 by Shahir Chowdhury (CEO), who has previously worked in finance and management, including as a director at HSBC UKs private bank and chief operating officer Zeeshan Zakaria. Zakaria also worked in finance prior to becoming a math teacher.Both were born in Dhaka and moved to the United Kingdom to attend university. TechCrunch heard from Chowdhury that he had always wanted to start a socially responsible business in Bangladesh, even though he was a finance professional.Chowdhury initially considered fintech due to his work experience. However, he soon realized that there were many other players who are focused on financial inclusion in Bangladesh such as bKash. Chowdhury began to think about education. His father is a retired professor, and his mother teaches high school. He then worked as a consultant on a report about Indian and Chinese edtech startups like Toppr and Byjus.Chowdhury said that I tried to understand edtech and why it worked in these markets. He also explained why it wasn't available in Bangladesh. It was obvious that Bangladesh should have it. You have everything you need from a macroeconomic standpoint. The population is very large, approximately 165 million, with half of them under 25.Chowdhury reached to Zakaria in order to help lead Shikhos academic programming. Shikhos mission is to provide more engaging and efficient ways for students to learn material from the Bangladesh National Curriculum.According to Zakaria, not much has changed in the syllabus since my dad was in Grade 10. Although I am not a politician, I can make changes to the way it is delivered. The pedagogical experience of teaching the curriculum is something that we have never seen before.Shikho was launched in the year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this didn't alter its approach to product design as it was intended to be an online learning platform.The company collaborates with educators to produce content. This includes animated videos that break down complex topics into shorter segments of approximately six minutes each. Students can learn at their own pace by using these animated videos. Smart notes are digital resources that replace guidebooks students often purchase for studying. They also provide practice questions and detailed solutions.Shikho's main video content is prerecorded. However, it will launch live classes on its app and website in approximately six weeks. New funding will enable the company to increase its content production, including an app that parents can use.Online learning platforms face a major challenge in keeping students engaged. Chowdhury stated that Shikho's gamification system was inspired in part by the Nike Run Club app. Like how Nike Run Club members get points for every run they do, Shikho also gives points to students when they log in, take a test, or watch a video. You can collect points for achievements ranging from beginner-legendary to finishing tests quickly and accurately.Students can also see their points compared to others on Shikho or the app as a whole.You can use the app for free for seven days. The company plans to offer more freemium content in order to increase conversions from paying customers to its new funding. Chowdhury claims that paying customers have high engagement rates and spend approximately 45 to 50 minutes per day in the app. After launching the app for parents, Shikho intends to double down on its user acquisition strategy. This includes offline sales teams in front schools.Chowdhury said that students are the customers and their parents are the users. Therefore, we knew that we would have to switch communication with parents. This is part of the purpose of this funding round.Rahat Ahmed, Anchorless Bangladesh founder partner and CEO, stated that Bangladesh has one the highest allocations of private education as a percentage in disposable income, but is behind India and Indonesia when edtech funding. We believe that the market is ready for growth, and the Shikho team is well-equipped to take education to the next stage.
