Rooshan Aziziz and Taha Ahmed quit their positions in London as strategy consultants and investment banks to start Maqsad in Pakistan. Their goal is to make education more affordable to 100 million Pakistani students.
Ahmed and Aziz, childhood friends, grew up in Karachi. They are well aware of the difficulties in Pakistan's education system. The ratio of students to teachers in Pakistan is 44:1. Aziz, Maqsad founder, said that Pakistani children are less likely than their counterparts to attend school for every kilometer between home and school.
Maqsad today announced its pre-seed round of $2.1 million to increase its content platform growth, and invest in R&D.
Indus Valley Capital led the pre-seed round. Alter Global, Fatima Gobi Ventures, and many angel investors from Europe, Pakistan, and the Middle East participated in it. It was completed via virtual meetings in three weeks.
TechCrunch was told by Aziz that Maqsad will use the profits to develop in-house content such as academics, animators and production studios. It also plans on bolstering R&D, engineering and development. Aziz stated that the company will be focusing on K-12 education in Pakistan. This includes 11th and 12th grades math. There are plans to expand into STEM subjects over the next one-two year.
Maqsads platform provides an easy-to-use resource for academic content in English and Urdu. It will also include quizzes and other gamified tools that can be combined to provide a customized education. Aziz said that adaptive testing allows users to alter the difficulty level of questions based on their responses.
In Urdu, maqsad is a term that means purpose.
We believe that everyone has a purpose. Maqsad's mission is to help Pakistani students realize their purpose.
Given that 95% of Pakistan's broadband users are mobile, we are creating a mobile-first platform. Aziz said that most other platforms are not mobile-optimized.
It's more than passing exams. Taha Ahmed, a former strategy consultant at LEK, stated that we want to make a significant change in Pakistani students' learning.
Aziz stated that the company had conducted pilots in April, May, and then began full-scale operations on June 26, 2007. He also said that Maqsad will launch its app for mobile devices, which is currently in development, in Q4 2021. There is a waitlist to get early access.
We decided to pilot it because of the struggles of students in the initial days of the pandemic. Aziz stated that the potential to digitize education was evident after initial success and positive user feedback.
Aziz said that the COVID-19 pandemic had reshaped education and fueled global edtech startups, making online education more accessible to a wider audience, such as in India and Indonesia.
According to Aziz, the education market in Pakistan is valued at $12 billion. It is expected to grow to $30 billion by 2030.
Aziz stated that the company plans to create a hybrid center, offering both online and offline courses such as Byjus or Aakash, and expand adult classes like MasterClass, which is based in the U.S., as part of its long-term goals.
Aatif Awan, founder and managing partner at Indus Valley Capital, stated that Maqsad's founders had a deep understanding of the problem and a unique approach to solving the problem. He also expressed his passion for impact and encouraged us to move quickly.
Pakistan's edtech potential is huge and we are thrilled to support Maqsad in delivering tech powered education that levels access, quality, and across Pakistans youth, Ali Mukhtar (general partner at Fatima Gobi Ventures) said.
