Teesas, an African-focused EdTech start-up that is delivering educational content to children aged 2 – 12 years via web and mobile applications, has closed a pre-seed round investment of $1.6m.
The funding round was led by Haresh Aswani of the Tolaram Group with participation from Olivegreen Advisory Partners, an African-focused Venture Studio, and other angel investors.
“We believe in the mission Osayi and the Teesas team has set forth on and are confident that they are best suited to crack the challenge of using technology to enhance access to quality education across Africa,” Aswani said.
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Teesas, Osayi Izedonmwen, said: “We are delighted to have secured this funding just a few months after founding Teesas. It is invigorating that the funding has come from investors who understand what it takes to succeed in Africa and have backed or built fast-growing start-ups within the continent.”
Founded in 2021, Teesas is committed to delivering e-learning platforms that deliver curriculum-aligned educational content via web and mobile applications. The Teesas educational app is aimed at children in reception and primary school grades and teaches core subjects through engaging tutor-led videos and eBooks in English and local languages such as Bini, Hausa, Ibibio, Igbo, Ijaw, Yoruba, and Tiv with plans to include French soon.
The pre-recorded videos are delivered by highly qualified tutors and uploaded unto the app across different grades with adaptation to make them fun using animation and gamification to enhance engagement and understanding. Teesas also provides e-books and live classes to further deepen the child’s understanding and a companion app for parents called Teesas Parents that provides personalized content recommendation and real-time feedback on their child’s performance such as duration of videos watched within a course, percentage of revision quiz completed, test scores, areas of need, among others.
Izedonmwen added that with the investment, the start-up intends to expand its content to cover the entire K-6 curriculum, expand into Africa, establish a tutor marketplace and build out the tech team.
“I have always wanted to impact education through technology, and it is my firm belief that digital learning is the most effective way to bridge the educational gap in Africa and enhance teaching methods. Our strategy at Teesas is to apply indigenous adaptations along with gamification to the child’s learning experience in order to deepen understanding of core educational concepts at a foundational (K-6) level. Once cognitive skills are set on the right path at the lower schooling years, we see better academic performance as kids move into higher classes,“ he further said.
