Maqsad, a Karachi-based edtech startup, has raised $2.8 million in a seed round, it announced today. Speedinvest, one of the largest seed funds in Europe, is leading this generation, and includes contributions from Indus Valley Capital, Stellar Capital, Alter Global, Johann Jenson (SVP Product at GoStudent) and others other angels. The startup said it raised a round and brought its total capital to date to $4.9 million. Maqsad has raised $2.1 million in seed funding in late 2021.
Founded in 2021 by Rooshan Aziz and Taha Ahmed, Maqsad aims to make education accessible to 100 million Pakistani students through an end-to-end mobile learning platform that provides tutorials, tests and quiz solutions for students in classes 9 to 12. month, Maqsad’s mobile application was downloaded over 1 million times, answered 4 million questions from students and continues to be ranked as the #1 teaching application in Pakistan on the Google Play Store, the source said and declaration.
The edtech platform seeks to disrupt the learning ecosystem by providing exceptional learning experiences for students at a low cost. The agency has collected feedback from 20,000 students and teachers across Pakistan to ensure that learning outcomes are achieved. Maqsad’s question-solving technology (“DoubtSolve”) and interactive research solve major problems for students who do not have access to good teachers.
With only one teacher for every 44 students, Pakistan has one of the highest student-teacher ratios in the world, a statement from the Karachi-based startup said. The edtech ecosystem can play an important role in solving various problems facing the country’s education sector, including the problem of student-teacher ratio.
“We recently improved our assessment plan, which allows students to confidently assess themselves, and have seen a consistent improvement of more than 150% month-on-month in the questions asked,” said the company’s official, Rooshan, in a statement.
Maqsad competes directly with local startups like Edkasa and Middle Eastern edtech platforms Noon and Abwaab, which have expanded in Pakistan in recent years. With its latest investment, Maqsad has become the highest-grossing community startup in Pakistan. It plans to use these funds to expand the theme offering and to improve the technology behind the platform. In addition, Maqsad’s long-term vision is to enter the education system, where the company has already received interest from private and public companies for partnerships.
Pakistan is an untapped edtech market, with annual spending expected to reach $37 billion by 2032. A quarter of that is spent on after-school education. , which is often expensive and difficult to obtain. The incoming investor Speedinvest is an experienced edtech investor, with Vienna-based GoStudent, an edtech unicorn, already in its portfolio. This investment in Maqsad demonstrates its potential to touch the lives of millions of students and transform the educational environment.
Philip Specht, Partner at Speedinvest, said in a statement,
“We like Rooshan and Taha as team builders and believe that Maqsad is on its way to becoming one of Pakistan’s most successful businesses.”
Indus Valley Capital, a venture capital investor, managed to double its funding, reflecting Rooshan and Taha’s vision for education in Pakistan. Indus Valley Capital founder Aatif Awan explained, “Investing in Maqsad again is a no-brainer as we have seen them bring together one of the best startup teams in Pakistan to create an original product that has helped over a million students.”